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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY STUDIES IN ENGLISH 
AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE 



BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 






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COLUMBIA 

UNIVERSITY PRESS 

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LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN 
VERSE 



BY 



CLAUDE M. FUESS, Ph.D. 




mew l^orft 

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 

1912 

All rights reserved 



Copyright, igi2 
By Columbia University Press 

Printed from type, July, igiz 






This Monograph has been approved by the Department of 
English and Comparative Literature in Columbia University as a 
contribution to knowledge worthy of publication. 

A. H. THORNDIKE, 

Secretary. 



^0 
MY WIFE 



PREFACE 

This dissertation is an out-growth of some studies in 
English satire, particularly in the eighteenth century, and 
the book is to be regarded merely as a chapter in the 
history of EngHsh satiric poetry as a whole. The initial 
suggestion for this special phase of the broader subject 
came from Professor W. P. Trent, to whose wide scholar- 
ship and suggestive comment I have been throughout 
under great obHgation. Professor A. H. Thorndike, who, 
with Professor Trent, read the work in manuscript, con- 
tributed valuable advice regarding its arrangement and 
contents ; while Professor J. B. Fletcher was of much 
assistance in criticising the sections dealing with Byron's 
indebtedness to the Italian poets. My colleague, Mr. A. 
W. Leonard, read the first two chapters, and offered much 
aid in connection with their style and structure. It is a 
pleasure to acknowledge the stimulus given by my studies 
under various members of the Departments of English and 
Comparative Literature at Columbia University, among 
them the late Professor G. R. Carpenter, Professor W. A. 
Neilson, now at Harvard, Mr. J. E. Spingarn, and Pro- 
fessors Krapp, Lawrence, and Matthews. 

C. M. F. 

Phillips Academy, Andover, 
June IQ, igi2. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — Introductory i 

II. — English Satire from Dryden to Byron . lo 

III. — Byron's Early Satiric Verse ... 39 

IV. — "English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers" 48 

V. — "Hints from Horace" and "The Curse 

OF Minerva " 77 



93 
113 
163 

188 



VI. — ^The Period of Transition , 
VII. — The Italian Influence 
VIII.—" Don Juan "... 
IX. — " The Vision of Judgment " 
X. — " The Age of Bronze " and " The Blues " 202 

XI. — Conclusion 210 

Bibliography 219 

Index 225 



Lord Byron as a Satirist 
in Verse 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY 

Byron's puzzling character and fascinating career have 
been tempting themes for many biographers, little and 
great, from Sir Egerton Brydges and Tom Moore to Pro- 
fessor Emil Koeppel and Mr. Richard Edgcumbe. His 
literary product, too, has been, for the most part, so care- 
fully and exhaustively treated by the critics of many 
nationalities that there is small excuse for adding one more 
volume to a bibliography already so comprehensive. It 
happens, however, that though his contribution to satiric 
poetry was extensive and important, his actual work in that 
field has been made the subject of no intensive study. It is 
the object of this essay to fill this gap by considering, so far 
as it is possible in a brief treatise, the special qualities 
which distinguish Byron's satiric spirit, and by analyzing 
and classifying the modifications of that spirit as they are 
shown in his poetry. The wide range of material to be 
investigated naturally precludes any attention to the events 
of his life, except when these throw light on the inception or 



2 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

composition of particular satires. Nor is it practicable 
to devote any space, except by way of illustration or refer- 
ence, to his poetry in general, or to his letters and prose 
pamphlets. The scope of the dissertation will be restricted 
to include a discussion only of his satire in verse. 

The lamentable absence of any established body of cri- 
teria available as a basis for the study of satire is a difficulty 
which must be recognized and met at the very outset. 
First of all, therefore, it is necessary to make clear just 
what matter is to be included under the rather vague head- 
ing, satire. Broadly speaking, satire comprises any manifes- 
tation of the satiric spirit in literature ; but this statement 
is really evasive, since the satiric spirit, like the roman- 
tic spirit, is intangible and not susceptible to precise defi- 
nition. In general, as Professor Tucker has pointed out, 
the essential feature of the satiric spirit, wherever found, 
is its disposition to tear down and destroy. Variations in 
temper and aim may exist in different satirists ; other sub- 
servient emotions may appear and other feelings may oper- 
ate, in individual cases, to modify the underlying mood ; 
but fundamentally the satiric spirit is negative and pessi- 
mistic. ' It furthers disillusion by confronting romance 
with realism and fiction with fact. The satirist thus per- 
ceives and exposes incongruity, the discrepancy between 
profession and performance. He is actuated always by a 
destructive motive, and it is his function to condemn and to 
reprov." 

Humor is, of course, usually a concomitant of satire, but 

' That satire is primarily destructive criticism was asserted by Hein- 
sius in a familiar passage quoted approvingly by Dryden in his Essay 
on Satire: — " Satire is a kind of poetry — in which human vices, ignorance, 
and errors, and all things besides, which are produced from them in 
every man, are severely reprehended." The same theory is expressed 
by De Gubernatis in his Storia delta Satira: — "La satira e, sovra ogni 
cosa, una negazione." 



INTRODUCTION 3 

authorities differ as to its value. Dryden, considering the 
question from the standpoint of the literary artist, says : — 
"The nicest and most delicate touches of satire consist in 
fine raillery." Gifford, posing as a moralist, takes another 
position; — "To raise a laugh at vice is not the legitimate 
office of satire, which is to hold up the vicious, as objects of 
reprobation and scorn, for the example of others, who may 
be deterred by their sufferings." When humor is wanting 
and the mood is entirely vituperative, the result is invec- 
tive, which some critics are desirous of excluding arbitrarily 
from satire. But however advantageous it may be, for 
practical reasons, to limit the application of the word satire, 
it is difficult to neglect invective; and in this essay, since 
a considerable part of Byron's so-called satire is sheer abuse, 
failure to treat that portion of his work would result in 
much confusion. An additional argument for including 
invective is furnished by the fact that to pass it over would 
mean relegating outside the domain of satire a large pro- 
portion of the work of other authors who have always been 
classed as satirists, among them Churchill and Gifford. 

Nor is it possible to insist upon the reformatory purpose 
behind the satiric spirit. Dryden's dictum that the sati- 
rist "is bound, and that is ex officio, to give his reader some 
one precept of moral virtue," commendable as it may be, 
has been by no means a universal law for satire, and one is 
forced to admit that whatever emphasis particular satirists 
may have given to this rule in theory, the common p actice 
has too often been at variance with it. Ultimately the 
single indispensable element of the satiric spirit is the wish 
to deny, rebuke, or destroy. 

It is evident that the satiric spirit may show itself, to a 
certain extent, in nearly every known type of literature, 
even at times in the epic or the lyric, to say nothing of the 
prose essay or novel. The specific term satire ought, how- 
ever, to be applied solely to a work in which the predomina- 



4 LORD L'^RON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

tin<T; motive is attack, whether on individuals, on institutions, 
or on mankind in gcn,cral. Thus we say that Childe Harold 
has satiric features; hut it is not, Uke The Age of Bronze, 
strictly a satire. For present purposes, too, it is desirable 
to narrow the field definitely by discussing the satiric spirit 
only so far as it has chosen verse for its medium, and by dis- 
carding the drama as belonging to another department of 
research. he subject may be further confined by neg- 
lecting poems which are obviously unlitcrary and make no 
pretensions to constructive or stylistic merit. The title 
verse-satire will be used looseh^ to fit any formal literary 
production in verse devoted ostensil)ly to negative criti- 
cism, whether direct or indirect, animated by sympathy 
or hatred; in short, to any non-dramatic poem, whatever its 
method, which has for its principal or a\'owcd object the 
holding of vice, folly, or incapacity up to ridicule or repro- 
bation. In Byron's work there are many poems containing 
slight satiric elements, and others which are plainly 
satires in the narrower sense of the term; some are conven- 
iently labelled, while others must be tested with regard to 
their intention and manner, and classified accordingly. 

Our not altogether adequate definition has been inten- 
tionally made broad that it may comi)rise any formal expres- 
sion of the satiric s]iirit in verse. The verse-satire as thus 
described may select its material from every province of 
human activity: literature, society, politics, and morals. 
It may range in tone from half-tolerant raillery, as in the 
Satires of Horace, to stern intolerant invective, as in the 
Satires of Ju\'enal. Its method may be either direct or 
indirect : direct, as in the formal classical satire, in which the 
purpose is distinctly stated; indirect, or dramatic, as in the 
fable, where the same end is sought through a more subtle 
or less obvious channel. Finally it may appear in one of 
several specialized types, each with peculiar characteristics 
of its own : the so-called formal or classical satire, based on 



INTRODUCTION 5 

Latin, French, or Italian models, represented in English 
literature in the poetry of Hall, 01«'''ham, and Pope; the 
mock-heroic, sometimes directly satiric as in Pope's Dim- 
ciad, sometimes indirectly so, as in his Rape of the Lock; the 
epigram and lampoon, used by Prior and Swift; the po- 
litical ballad or song, illustrated in the verse of Marvcll and 
Charles Hanbury WiUiams; the satiric fable, 1 orrowcd by 
Yalden, Gay, Whitehead, and others from ^. ^op and La 
Fontaine; and the burlesque, with its two subdivisions — 
parody, used in Philips' Splendid Shilling, which inten- 
tionally degrades the blank verse of Milton, and travesty, 
illustrated in Byron'45 Vision of Judgment, which gives an 
inferior treatment to lofty material. It is hardly necessary 
to add that these types, with others of less significance, con- 
tinually encroach upon each other, so that two or more are 
frequently mingled in one poem. The single feature com- 
mon to them all, however, is the tendency to deride or 
assail; therefore, in spite of their many superficial differ- 
ences, they are classed together because of their general 
tone of negation. 

A consideration of Byron's satiric spirit as it is shown in 
his verse involves an investigation of the objects of his 
attack, whether individuals, classes, or institutions, and a 
discussion of the relation of his satire to contemporary life 
in literature, society, poHtics, and morals. It also necessi- 
tates a study of the forms which he adopted, the methods 
which he utilized, and the manner which he was inclined to 
assume. vSomething ought also to be said of his indebted- 
ness to other satirists, Latin, English, and Italian, and of 
his place and influence in the evolution of English satire. 
Lastly, a summary is required of the peculiar characteristics 
which distinguish his satiric spirit and make his work dis- 
tinctive or unique. 

Sir Walter Scott's generous assertion that his rival 
"embraced every topic in human life" is, of course, hyper- 



b LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

bole; but one may be permitted to suspect that the variety 
and compass of Byron's genius have not always been suf- 
ficiently dwelt upon. Even sympathetic critics have been 
in the habit of forgetting that in all three of what are ordi- 
narily reckoned the chief divisions of poetry — the narrative, 
the lyrical, and the dramatic — Byron achieved distinct 
success. The same may be said of his attempts at poetry 
of a descriptive and meditative sort. That Manfred and 
Beppo, Cliilde Harold and "She walks in beauty like the 
night,'' bear the same writer's signature is convincing proof 
not only of the fecundity but also of the diverseness of his 
talent. What is true of his work as a whole is also true of 
his satire. It is to be found in several forms: the satiric 
tale, the formal or classical satire, the travesty, the epi- 
gram, and the mock-heroic. It is sometimes scurrilous, 
sometimes didactic, and vSometimes playful. It carries its 
attack into many fields: into literature in English Bards; 
into society in The Waltz; into politics in The Age of Bro7ize; 
and into morals in Don Juan. Finally in Do7i Jiian, his 
longest and most important poem, the satiric spirit blends 
with other elements, romantic, tragic, realistic, and collo- 
quial, to produce what Paul Elmer More calls "to many 
critics the greatest Satire ever written." 

Professor Courthope traces throughout Byron's poetry 
three main currents of feeling: the romance of the dilet- 
tante, the indignation of the satirist, and the lyrical utter- 
ance of the man himself. Of these three emotions, 
continues the critic, one comes in turn to predominate over 
the others at different periods, as external circumstances 
affect the poet. This analysis is, on the whole, discerning 
and uncontrovertible; but despite the fact that Byron so 
often ventured into romantic and lyric poetry, there is good 
cause for maintaining that his mind was primarily satiric 
in its observation of life. If we accept the testimony of his 
nurse. May Gray, as it was taken down by Moore, Byron's 



INTRODUCTION 7 

first lisping in numbers was in the nature of satire, being a 
short lampoon on an old lady who had irritated him by her 
curious notions regarding the destination of the soul after 
death. ' These verses, according to May Gray, date from 
1798, when the boy was ten years old. During the ensuing 
years he engaged in writing satire, without many intermis- 
sions, until his career closed in 1824 with Don Juan still 
unfinished. In no other branch of literature was he led to 
undertake such a series of poems through so long a period. 
His narrative poetry cannot be said to have begun before 
Childe Harold (1812); as a dramatist he pubHshed nothing 
anterior to Manfred (1817) ; and even his lyrics appeared at 
infrequent intervals and in no great numbers. During 
most of his life, on the other hand, he engaged in satire of 
one kind or another. The Curse of Minerva was brought 
back from his early travels, along with the first two cantos 
of Childe Harold; The Waltz is almost synchronous with the 
Giaour; and The Vision of Judgment was being planned 
while he was composing Cain. Even in the period between 
the Waltz (1813) and Beppo (1818), during which no long 
verse-satire of his was published, he wrote The Devil's 
Drive (iSit,), Windsor Poetics {1814.), and A Sketch (1816), 
besides other shorter epigrams. Thus Byron's satiric spirit 
was persistent and conspicuous from the date of Fugitive 
Pieces (1806) until his death eighteen years later. 

The position which Byron occupies in the history of 
English satire is especially important because he is, in many 
respects, the last of the powerful satirists in verse. English 
Bards, and Scotch Reviewers, published in March, 1809, is 
perhaps the last of the great English satires in the heroic 
couplet measure. It is a final vigorous outburst in the 
genre which, originating possibly with Wyatt, and improved 
by Donne and Hall, culminated in the satires of Dryden, 
and then passing successively through the hands of Pope, 

'See Poetry, VII, i. 



8 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

Churchill, and Gifford, underwent many modifications, 
and seemed, down to the end of the eighteenth century, to 
be losing gradually in universality and permanent value. 
The revival in which Byron took part, but which, as we shall 
see, was not altogether occasioned by him, was spasmodic 
and temporary ; and in the hundred years since the appear- 
ance of English Bards, our literature has produced no single 
satire in the same manner worthy of being placed by the side 
of the Dunciad, the Rosciad, or even the Baviad. Byron 
himself, though he continued to write this sort of satire up 
to the time of The Age of Bronze, never equalled his early 
success. Eventually he turned from his standard models. 
Pope and Gifford, and under the inspiration of Italy and 
Italian authors, made his chief original contribution to 
satire in Beppo, Don Juan, and The Vision of Judgment. He 
thus, in a significant way, closes and sums up the work of 
an old and passing school, at the same time bringing into 
English satire the infusion of a new spirit and method. 

With these facts in view, it is convenient and not illogical 
to arrange the major part of Byron's satiric verse into two 
distinct groups. The one, deeply rooted in classical and 
English tradition, conforming to established conventions 
and obeying precedents well understood in our language, 
includes English Bards, Hints from Horace, The Curse of 
Minerva, The Waltz, and The Age of Bronze, besides other 
works shorter and less noteworthy. The other, retaining 
something of the "saeva indignatio" of Juvenal and Swift, 
but embodying it in what may be called, for want of a better 
term, the Itahan burlesque spirit — that mood which, vary- 
ing in individual authors, but essentially the same, prevails 
in the poetry of Pulci, Berni, and Casti — comprises Beppo, 
Don Juan, and The Vision of Judgment. Generally speak- 
ing, this division on the basis of sources corresponds to a 
difference in metre : the classical satires employ, almost from 
necessity, the iambic pentameter couplet, while those in the 



INTRODUCTION 9 

Italian manner adopt the exotic ottava rima. This classi- 
fication is also partly chronological, for the English satires, 
with the exception of The Age of Bronze and some short epi- 
grams, were written before 1817, and the Italian satires 
appeared during the eight years following that date, while 
Byron was in Italy and Greece. 

The numerous ballads, political verses, and personal 
epigrams, some printed in the daily newspapers, others sent 
in letters to his friends, constitute another interesting group 
of satires, about which, however, no very satisfactory gen- 
eralizations can be made. There are also lines and passages 
of a satiric nature in other poems, but these, casual as they 
are, need to be mentioned only because of their connection 
with ideas advanced in the genuine Verse-Satires, or because 
of some especial interest attaching to them. 

In taking up the separate poems included in this mass 
of material it seems best to observe, as far as practicable, 
a chronological order, for by so doing, we may observe the 
steady growth and broadening of Byron's ability as a sati- 
rist, and trace his connection with the events of his time. 
However, before proceeding directly to an analysis of the 
poet's work and methods, it is necessary to say something 
of his predecessors in English satire, from many of whom 
he derived so much. 



CHAPER II 
ENGLISH SATIRE FROM DRYDEN TO BYRON 

Enough has been said to hint that Byron's quaHties as 
a satirist in verse are often best to be explained by a refer- 
ence to the methods and influence of those who went before 
him. So far as his connection with English satire is con- 
cerned, Byron was indebted in part to a widespread and 
somewhat conventional satiric tradition established by 
Pope and in part also to the special characteristics of certain 
individual satirists like Gifford. Unfortunately the field of 
English satire has been investigated carefully only to the 
close of the Elizabethan era; it is, therefore, imperative to 
present, as a working basis, a brief outline of the course of 
satiric verse during the century or more prior to Byron's 
own age. Such a summary being of value here chiefly as 
affording material for comparison, detailed treatment need 
be given only to the more conspicuous figures, particularly 
to those to whom it is possible Byron was under obligation. 

The years between the accession of Charles II and the 
death of Pope saw a remarkable advance in the quantity 
and quality of published satiric work, in both prose and 
verse. For this development several causes ma}'' be assigned. 
As the romantic enthusiasm of the Renaissance died away 
or exhausted itself in fantastic extravagance and license, 
the new age, in reaction, became gradually more reasonable 
and practical. Its general tendencies were academic, intro- 
spective, and critical: literature began to analyze itself and 
to frame laws for its own guidance; society found amuse- 



ENGLISH SATIRE FROM DRYDEN TO BYRON II 

ment in laughing at its own follies and frivolities ; moralists 
were occupied in censuring misbehaviour and in codifying 
maxims for the government of conduct. This critical 
spirit, whenever it became destructive, naturally sought 
expression in satire. Party feeling, too, grew violent in 
dealing with the complex problems raised by the bloodless 
revolution of 1689 and its aftermath; moreover, most of the 
prominent writers of the day, gathered as they were in Lon- 
don, allied themselves with either Whigs or Tories and 
engaged vigorously in the factional warfare. In the urban 
and gregarious life of the age of Anne, the thinkers who 
sharpened their wits against one another in clubs and coffee- 
houses esteemed logic and good sense higher than romantic 
fancy. Their talk and writing dealt mainly with practical 
affairs, with particular features of ]3olitical and social life. 
It is not at all surprising that this critical and practical 
period should have found its most satisfactory expression 
in satire — a literary type which is well fitted to treat of 
definite and concrete questions. 

Before 1700 interest in English satire centres inevitably 
around the name of Dryden. Among his contemporaries 
were, of course, other satirists, some of them distinguished 
by originality and genius. The true political satire, used 
so effectively against the Parliamentarians by Cleveland 
(1613-1658), had been revived in the work of Denham 
(1615-1669) and Marvell (1621-1678). Formal satire in 
the manner of Juvenal and Boileau had been attempted 
by Oldham (1653- 1683) in his Satires against the Jesuits 
(1678-9). Moreover, several new forms had been intro- 
duced: Butler (1612-1680) in Tludibras (1663) had created 
an original variety of burlesque, with unusual rhymes, 
grotesque similes, and quaint ideas; Cotton (1630-1687) in 
his Scarronides (1664) had transplanted the travesty from 
the French of Scarron; and Garth (i 661-17 19) ha-d com- 
posed in the Dispensary (1699) our earliest classical mock- 



12 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

heroic. Marvell, Rochester, Sedley, Dorset, and others 
had written songs and ballads of a satiric character, most 
of them coarse and scurrilous. But the work of these men. 
like that of their predecessors in satire, Lodge, Donne, Hall, 
Marston, Guilpin, Wither, and Brome, is, as a whole, crude 
and inartistic, rough in metre and commonplace in style. 
Dryden, who took up satire at the age of fifty, after a long 
and thorough discipline in literary craftsmanship, avoided 
these faults, and polished and improved the verse-satire, 
preserving its vigor while lending it refinement and dignity. 

Dryden 's satire is distinguished by clearness, good taste, 
and self-control. The author was seldom in a rage, nor was 
he ever guilty of indiscriminate railing. Seeking to make 
his victims ridiculous and absurd rather than hateful, he 
drew them, not as monsters or unnatural villains, but as 
foolish or weak human beings. ' It is significant, too, that 
he did not often mention his adversaries by their real names, 
but referred to them, for the most part, by pseudonyms, a 
device through which individual satire tends constantly to 
become typical and universal. Although he asserted that 
"the true end of satire is the amendment of vices by correc- 
tion," he rarely, except in po^ms which were designedly 
theological, permitted a moral purpose to become obtrusive. 

Deliberately putting aside the octosyllabic metre of But- 
ler as too undignified for satire, Dryden chose what he 
called the "English heroic," or iambic pentameter couplet, 
as best suited to heroic poetry, of which he considered satire 
to be properly a species. This measure, already employed 
by Hall, Donne, and others as a medium for satire, is, as 
Dryden perceived, admirably suited for concise and pointed 
expression. Having used it successfully in his plays, he 

' In the Preface to Absalom and Achitophel, Dryden is inclined to take 
pride in his fairness: — "I have but laughed at some men's follies, when 
I could have declaimed against their vices; and other men's virtues I 
have commended, as freely as I have taxed their crimes." 



ENGLISH SATIRE FROM DRYDEN TO BYRON I3 

was already familiar with its possibilities and skilful in its 
management, and in his hands it became harmonious, 
varied, and incisive, a very different measure from the 
couplet as handled by even so near a contemporary as 
Oldham. 

Excellent as Dryden's satires are, they cannot be said to 
have had an influence proportionate to their merit. Defoe's 
True-horn Englishman (1701), probably the most popular 
satire between Absalom and Achitophel and the Dunciad, 
did undoubtedly owe much to Dryden's work; and it is also 
true that MacFlecknoe suggested the plot of the Dunciad. 
During the eighteenth century, however, Dryden's satires 
were not extensively imitated, chiefly because they were 
superseded as models by the work of Pope. Of the satirists 
after Pope, only Churchill seems to have preferred Dryden, 
and even he followed the principles of Pope in practice. 
Thus historically Dryden is of less importance in the history 
of satire than his successor and rival. 

In the period between the death of Dryden and the death 
of Pope, satirists labored assiduously for correctness. The 
importance of this step can hardly be overestimated, for 
satire, more perhaps than any other literary type, is depen- 
dent on style for its pennanency. Its subject matter is 
usually concerned with transitory events and specific indi- 
viduals, and when the interest in these subsides, nothing 
but an excellent form can ensure the durabiUty of the satire. 
Of this endeavor for artistic perfection in satire. Pope is the 
completest representative. 

Pope boasted repeatedly that he had "moralized his 
song"; that is, that he had employed his satire for definite 
ethical purposes. In an invocation to Satire, he put into 
verse his theory of its proper use : — 

"O sacred weapon! left for Truth's defence. 
Sole Dread of Folly, Vice, and Insolence ! 



14 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

To all but Heav'n directed hands deny'd, 

The Muse may give thee, but the Gods must guide; 

Rev'rent I touch thee! but with honest zeal, 

To rouse the Watchmen of the public Weal."' 

The lofty tone of this address ought not, however, to 
obscure the fact that Pope was primarily a personal satirist, 
actuated too often merely by the desire to satisfy his private 
quarrels. His claim to being an agent for the cause of 
public virtue is sometimes justified in his work, but not 
infrequently it is but a thin pretence for veiling his under- 
lying malice and vindictiveness. What Pope really wanted, 
most of all, in his satires, was to damage the reputation of his 
foes; and, it must be added, he generally achieved his aim. 

Pope was both less scrupulous and more personal than 
Dryden. He appropriated Dryden's method of presenting 
portraits of well-known persons under type-names; but 
unlike Dryden, who had preserved a semblance of fairness, 
Pope was too often merely vituperative and savage. He 
seldom attained that high variety of satire which plans ' ' to 
attack a man so that he feels the attack and half acknow- 
ledges its justice."^ Unlike Dryden, too, he rarely mas- 
tered the difficult art of turning the individual objects of 
his scorn into representatives of a broader class. His per- 
sonal sketches do not, except in a few instances like the 
celebrated Atticus, live as pictures of types. 

Pope, moreover, was not always discreet enough to mask 
his opponents under pseudonyms. Sometimes, following a 
device introduced into English satire by Hall, he used an 
initial letter, with dashes or asterisks to fill out the name. 
More often he printed the name in full.^ He had no 

• Epilogue to the Satires, Dialogue II., 212-217. 
^ See Chesterton's Pope and the Art of Satire. 
3 Both methods are illustrated in a line of the Dunciad: — 
"My H — ley's periods, or my Blackmore's numbers." 



ENGLISH SATIRE FROM DRYDEN TO BYRON 1 5 

scruples about making attacks on women, a practice not 
countenanced by Dry den.' In his satire on personal 
enemies he was insolent and offensive : however, he seldom 
gave vent to his rage, but kept cool, revised and polished 
every epithet, and retorted in a calm, searching dissection 
of character. In his methods he was unprincipled, never 
hesitating to make the vilest charges if they served his 
purposes. 

In matters of form and technique Pope's art is unques- 
tioned. He refined and condensed the couplet until it cut 
like a rapier. The beauty of his satire thus lies rather in 
small details than in general effect, in clear-cut and pene- 
trating phrasing rather than in breadth of conception. 
With all this his work is marked by an air of urbanity, ease, 
and grace, which connects him with Horace rather than 
with Juvenal. His wit is constant and his irony subtle. 
He understood perfectly the value of compression and of 
symmetry. 

Finally, he left behind him a heritage and a tradition. 
With all his malice, his occasional pettiness and habitual 
deceit, he so transformed the verse-satire that no imitator, 
following his design, has been able to surpass it. The 
methods and the forms which he used became, for good or 
for evil, those of most satire in the eighteenth century. 
From the Dunciad down to the days of Byron it was Pope's 
influence chiefly that determined the course of English 
satire in verse. 

Byron was fond of associating himself with Pope. He 
paid homage to him as a master, sustained, in theory at 
least, his principles of versification, defended his character, 
and offered him the tribute of quotation and imitation. 
Over and over again he repeated his belief in "the Chris- 

■ In the Dramatis Personae of Absalom and Achitophel only two women 
appear, and they are spoken of in the poem in a complimentary way. 



1 6 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

tianity of English poetry, the poetry of Pope."' Only in 
satire, however, did Pope's influence become noticeable in 
Byron's poetry; but in satire this influence was important. 

Pope's chief contemporary in formal satire in verse was 
Young, whose Love of Fame, The Universal Passion was 
finished in 1727, before the publication of the Dunciad. 
The seven satires which this work contains comprise por- 
trayals of type characters under Latin names, diversified 
by allusions to living personages, the intention being to 
ridicule evils in contemporary social life. The Epistles to 
Pope (1730), by the same author, are more serious, espe- 
cially in their arraignment of Grub Street. Young's com- 
paratively lifeless work made seemingly no strong appeal 
to Byron. The latter never mentions him as a satirist, 
although he does quote with approval some favorite pas- 
sages from his work. 

Lighter in tone and less rigidly formal in structure was 
the poetry of a group of writers headed by Prior and Gay, 
both of whom were at their best in a kind of familiar verse, 
lively, bantering, and worldly in spirit. Prior managed 
with some skill the octosyllabic couplet of Butler; Gay was 
successful in parody and the satiric fable. ^ The connection 
of Prior and Gay with Byron is not a close one, although 
the latter quoted from them both in his Letters, and com- 
posed some impromptu parodies of songs from Gay's 
Beggar's Opera. ^ 

With Swift Byron had, perhaps, more affinity. Swift's 

' Byron particularly emphasizes the correctness and moral tone of 
Pope: he is "the most perfect of our poets and the purest of our moral- 
ists" {Letters, v., 559); "his moral is as pure as his poetry is glorious" 
{Letters, v., 555); "he is the only poet that never shocks" {Letters, v., 
560). 

' Gay's Alexander Pope, his safe Return from Troy (1720) is interesting 
as being one of the rare examples of the use of the English octave stanza 
between Lycidas and Beppo. 

3 Letters, v., 252. 



ENGLISH SATIRE FROM DRYDEN TO BYRON 1 7 

cleverness in discovering extraordinary rhymes undoubtedly 
influenced the versification of Dofi Juan,^ and his morbid 
haired of human nature and sordid views of life sometimes 
colored Byron's satiric mood.^ 

Much lower in the literary scale are the countless ballads 
and lampoons of the period which maintain the rough and 
ready aggressiveness of Marvell, in a style slovenly, broken, 
and journalistic. Events like the trial of Sacheverell and 
the South Sea Bubble brought out scores of ephemeral 
satires which it would be idle to notice here. Of these 
scurvy pamphleteers, three gained considerable notoriety: 
Tom Brown (1663-1704), Thomas D'Urfey (1653-1723), 
and Ned Ward (i 667-1 731). Defoe, in several long satires, 
especially in the formidable folio Jure Divino, shows the 
results of a study of Dryden, although his Hues are rugged 
and his style is colloquial. The work of no one of these 
men had any visible influence on Byron, but their produc- 
tion illustrates the wide-spread popularity at this time of 
satire, even in its transitory and unliterary phases. 

The latter half of the eighteenth century, comparatively 
poor though it is in poetry of an imaginative sort, is 
rich in satiric literature of every variety. Nearly every 
able writer of verse — even including Gray — tried his 
hand at satire, and the resulting product is enormous. 
The heroic couplet as employed by Pope was recognized 
as the proper measure for formal satire, and the influence 
of Pope appeared in the diverse forms used: the mock- 
heroic, the personal- epistle, the critical verse-essay, and 
the moral or preceptive poem. At the same time no 
small proportion of less formal satire took the manner of 

' In speaking of the art of rhyming to Trelawney, Byron said: — "If 
you are curious in these matters, look in Swift. I will send you a vol- 
ume; he beats us all hollow, his rhymes are wonderful." 

' Cf. Swift's The Puppet Show with Byron's Inscription on the Monu- 
ment of a Newfoundland Dog. 



1 8 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

Gay and Swift, in the octosyllabic couplet. The ballad 
and other less dignified measures still continued popular 
for ephemeral satire. Finally there was a body of work, 
including Cowper's Task, the satiric poems of Burns, and the 
early Tales of Crabbe, which must be regarded as, in some 
respects, exceptional. 

Of the satirists of the school of Pope, the greater number 
seem to have had Dr. Johnson's conception of Satire as the 
son of Wit and Malice, although, like Pope, they continued 
to pose as the upholders of morality even when indulging 
in the most indiscriminate abuse. ' They borrowed the 
lesser excellencies of their master, but seldom attained to 
his brilliance, keeping, as far as they were able, to his form 
and method, but lacking the genius to reanimate his style. 

The mock-heroic was exceedingly popular during the 
fifty years following the death of Pope. The satires of one 
group, following The Rape of the Lock, contain no personal 
invective, and are satiric only in the sense that any parody 
of a serious genre is satiric. ^ Another class of mock-heroics, 
modelled particularly on the Dunciad, make no pretence of 
refraining from personal satire, and are often violently 
scurrilous.^ A large number of poems imitate the title of 
the Dunciad without necessarily having any mock-heroic 
characteristics." In the field of personal, and especially of 

' For a contemporary characterization of the unscrupulous satirists 
of the period see Cowper's Chanty, 501-532, in the passage beginning, 
"Most satirists are indeed a public scourge." 

* Examples are The Thimble (1743) by William Hawkins (1722-1801) 
and the Scribleriad (1752) by Richard Owen Cambridge (17 17-1802). 

3 State Dunces (1733) and The Gymnasiad (1738) by Paul Whitehead 
(1710-1744); The Toast (1736) by William King (1685-1763); and a suc- 
cession of anonymous poems. The Battle oj the Briefs (1752), Patriotism 
(1765), The Battle of the Wigs (1763), The Triumph of Dulness (1781), 
The Rape of the Faro-Bank (1797), and The Battle of the Bards (1799). 

^ The most important is Churchill's Rosciad (1761), with the numerous 
replies which it elicited: the Churchilliad (1761), the Smithfield Rosciad 



ENGLISH SATIRE FROM DRYDEN TO BYRON IQ 

political, satire, are many poems not corresponding exactly 
to any of the above mentioned types. ^ The bitter party 
feeling aroused by the rise to power of Lord Bute and by 
the resulting protests of Wilkes in the North Briton was the 
occasion of many broadsides during the decade between 
1760 and 1770.^ 

Several satires of the period, based particularly on Pope's 
satiric epistles, seem to maintain a more elevated tone, 
although they also are frequently intemperate in their per- 
sonalities. •^ An excellent example is the very severe 
Epistle to Curio by Akenside, praised for its literary merits 
by Macaulay.'' A small, but rather important class of 
satires is made up of criticisms of literature or literary men 
in the manner of either the Essay on Criticism or the Dun- 

(1761), the Anii-Rosciad (1761), by Thomas Morell (1703-1784), and 
The Rosciad of Covent Garden (i 761) by H. J. Pye (1745-18 13). Among 
other satires of the same class may be mentioned the Smartiad (1752) 
by Dr. John Hill (17 10-1775), with its answer, the severe and effective 
Hilliad (1752) by Christopher Smart (1722-1771); the Meretriciad 
(1764) by Arthur Murphy (1727-1806); the Consuliad (1770), a frag- 
ment by Chatterton; the Diaboliad (1777), with its sequel, the Diabo- 
lady (1777) by WilHam Combe (i 741-1823); and finally the Criticisms 
on the Rolliad, Gilford's Baviad and Mceviad, the Simpliciad, and the 
Alexandriad (1805). 

' The Scandalizade (1750); The Pasquinade (1752) by William Kenrick 
(1725-1779); The Quackade (1752); The Booksellers (1766); The Art of 
Rising in the Church (1763) by James Scott (1733-1814); The Senators 
(1772); and The Tribunal (1787). 

^ A few typical controversial satires of this decade are: The Race 
(1762) by Cuthbert Shaw (1739-1771); The Tower (1763); the Dema- 
gogue (1764) by William Falconer (1732-1769); The Scourge (1765); 
and The Politician (1766) by E. B. Greene (1727-1788). 

3 Some characteristic examples are the Epistle to Cornbury (1745) by 
Earl Nugent (i 702-1 788); the Epistle to William Chambers (1773) and 
the Epistle to Dr. Shebbeare (1777) by Wilham Mason (i 724-1 797); and 
the Epistle to Dr. Randolph (1796), as well as numerous other epistles, by 
T. J. Mathias. 

* See Macaulay's Essay on Horace Walpole, page 35. 



20 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

ciad. I Still another group deal, like Young's Love of Fame, 
with the foibles and fads of society, using type figures and 
avoiding specific references.^ It is necessary, finally, to 
include under satire many of the didactic and philosophic 
poems which seemed to infect the century. ^ These Ethic 
Epistles, as they are styled in Bell's Fugitive Pieces, are often 
little more than verse sermons. Obviously many poems 
of this nature hardly come within the scope of true satire. 
Goldsmith's Deserted Village (1770), for instance, has some 
satirical elements; yet it is, properly speaking, meditative 
and descriptive verse. The same may be said, perhaps, of 
the so-called satires of Cowper. 

The body of work thus cursorily reviewed shows a wide 
diversity of subject-matter combined with a consistent and 
monotonous uniformity of style. In most of the material 
we find the same regular versification, the same stock epi- 
thets, and the same lack of distinctive qualities; indeed, 
were the respective writers unknown, it would be a difficult 
task to distinguish between the verse of two such satirists 
as James Scott and Soame Jenyns. During the fifty years 
between the death of Pope and the appearance of Gifford's 

' An Essay on the Different Styles of Poetry (1713) by Thomas Parnell 
(1679-1718); The Danger of Writing Verse (1741) by William Whitehead 
(1715-1785); A Prospect of Poetry (1733); The Perils of Poetry (1766); 
and The Wreath of Fashion (1780) by Richard Tickell (1751-1793)- 

^ The anonymous Manners of the Age (1733); Manners (1738) by Paul 
Whitehead; The Man of Taste (1733) by James Bramston (i 694-1 744); 
the Modern Fine Gentleman (1746) and the Modern Fine Lady (1750) by 
Soame Jenyns (1703-1787); Fashion (1748) by Joseph Warton (1722- 
1800); and Newmarket (1751) by Thomas Warton (1728-1790). 

3 Examples are the Essay on Reason (1733) by Walter Harte (1709- 
1774); the Vanity of Human Enjoyments (1749) by James Cawthorn 
(1718-1761), the most slavish of all Pope's imitators; Honour (1737) 
by John Brown; Advice and Reproof (1747) by Smollett; Of Retired and 
Active Life (1735) by William Helmoth (1710-1799); Ridicule (1743) by 
William Whitehead; Taste (1753) by John Armstrong (1709-1779); 
An Essay on Conversation (1748) by Benjamin StiUingfleet (1702-1771). 



ENGLISH SATIRE FROM DRYDEN TO BYRON 21 

Baviad (1794) only four names stand out above the rest 
as important in the history of English satire in verse: 
Johnson, Churchill, Cowper, and Crabbe. 

Of these writers, Johnson contributed but little to the 
mass of English satire. His London (1738) and The Vanity 
of Human Wishes (1749) are imitations of Juvenal, char- 
acterized by stateliness, dignity, melancholy, and sonorous 
rhetoric, but with only a slight element of personal attack. 
The latter poem received high praise from Byron. ' 

Churchill and Byron, who have often been compared 
because of their quarrels with the reviewers and their denun- 
ciation of a conservative and reactionary government, were 
much alike in their arrogant independence, their fiery 
intensity, and their passionate liberalism. Churchill, how- 
ever, unlike Byron, was always a satirist, and undertook no 
other species of poetry. In many respects he resembled 
Oldham, whose career, like his, was short and tumultuous, 
and whose wit, like his, usually shone "through the harsh 
cadence of a rugged line." 

All Churchill's work is marked by vigor, effrontery, and 
earnestness, and the ferocity and vindictiveness of much of 
it give force to Gosse's description of the author as "a very 
Caligula among men of letters." However, although he 
was responsible for two of the most venomous literary 
assaults in English — that on Hogarth in the Epistle to Wil- 
liam Hogarth (1763) and that on Lord Sandwich in The Can- 
didate (1764) — he did not stab from behind or resort to 
underhand methods. Despite his obvious crudities, he is 
the most powerful figure in English satire between Pope 
and Byron. 

Churchill employed two measures: the heroic couplet, in 
tTie Rosciad (1761) and several succeeding poems; and the 
octosyllabic couplet, in The Ghost (1763) and The Duellist 
(1764). His versification is seldom polished, but his lines 

' Letters, v., 162. 



22 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

have, at times, something of the robustness and impetuous 
disregard of regularity which lend strength to Dryden's 
couplets. It was to Churchill that Byron attributed in part 
what he was pleased to term the "absurd and systematic 
depreciation of Pope,"' which, in his opinion, had been 
developing steadily towards the end of the eighteenth 
century. Churchill frankly acknowledged his preference 
of Dryden over Pope,^ a partiality which he shared with 
Voltaire and Dr. Johnson. The fact is, however, that, 
despite his failure to attain smoothness and artistic finish, 
he owed more to Pope than he realized or cared to admit. ^ 

With Cowper, Byron had temperamentally little in com- 
mon; yet Cowper is interesting, if only for the reason that 
he proves, by contrast with Churchill, the range in manner 
of which the classical satire is capable. He was most suc- 
cessful in a kind of mildly moral reproof, which has often 
ease, humor, and apt sententiousness, although it rarely 
possesses energy enough to make it effective as satire. 
Cowper's familiar verse, often satirical in tone, is almost 
wholly admirable, the best of its kind between Prior and 
Praed. 

The satire of Crabbe is essentially realistic. It portrays 
things as they are, dwelling on each sordid detail and sweep- 
ing away all the illusions of romance. In The Village 
(1783), for instance, Crabbe describes life as he found it 
among the lower classes in a Suffolk coast town — a life 
barren, humdrum, and dismal : thus the poem is an antidote, 
possibly intentional, to the idyllic and sentimental picture 
drawn by Goldsmith in The Deserted Village. The ethical 

' Letters, iv., 485. ' See An Apology, 376-387. 

3 In his Letters, Byron refers once to Churchill's Times {Letters, n., 
148). His Churchill's Grave (1816), a parody of Wordsworth's style, 
contains a reference to Churchill as "him who blazed the comet of a 
season." Otherwise Churchill's actual influence on Byron was not 
great. 



ENGLISH SATIRE FROM DRYDEN TO BYRON 23 

element is always present in Crabbe's work, and thus he 
preserves the didacticism of Pope and Cawthorn; but his 
homely phraseology, his sombre portraiture, and his pitiless 
psychological analysis of character connect him with a 
novelist like Hardy. Possibly some of the realism of Don 
Juan may be traced to the example of Crabbe, for whom 
Byron had both respect and affection. ' 

Aside from that exercised by the work and heritage of 
Pope, the most definite influence upon Byron's satiric verse 
came from the satires of William Gifford (i 756-1 826), 
which had appeared some years before Byron began to 
write. Gifford, who early became the young lord's model 
and counsellor, and who later revised and corrected his 
poetry, continued to the end to be one of the few Hter- 
ary friends to whom Byron referred consistently with 
deference.^ 

Gifford's reputation was established by the publication 
of two short satires, the Baviad (1794) and the McBviad 
(1795), printed together in 1797. The Baviad is an imita- 
tion of the first satire of Persius, in the form of a dialogue 
between the poet and his friend; the Maviad paraphrases 
Horace's tenth satire of the first book. Both are devoted 
primarily to deserved, but often unnecessarily harsh, criti- 
cism of some contemporary fads in literature, particularly 
of the "effusions" of the so-called Delia Cruscan School.^ 

'Byron praised Crabbe in English Bards as "Nature's sternest 
painter, but her best." In a letter to Moore, February 2, 1818, he 
termed Crabbe and Rogers "the fathers of present Poesy," and in his 
Reply to Blackwood's (1819) he said pubUcly: "We are all wrong except 
Crabbe, Rogers, and Campbell." Crabbe, whom Horace Smith called 
"Pope in worsted stockings," seemed, to Byron, to represent devotion to 
Pope. 

^ Byron said of Gifford in 1824: "I have always considered him as 
my Uterary father, and myself as his ' prodigal son' " {Letters, vi., 329). 

3 The movement represented by this clique, Gli Oziosi, originated in 
Florence with a coterie of dilettanti, among whom were Robert Merry 



24 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

Gifford was a Tory in a period when the unexpected excesses 
of the French revolutionists were causing all Tories, and 
even the more conservative Whigs, to take a stand against 
innovation, eccentricity, and individualism in any form. 
Since the Delia Cruscans were nearly all liberals, ' it was 
natural that Gifford should be enthusiastic in his. project 
of ridiculing the "metromania" for which they were re- 
sponsible. Thus his satires are protests against license, 
defending the conventional canons of taste and reasserting 
the desirability of law and order in literature. 

Undoubtedly Gifford performed a certain service to the 
cause of letters by condemning, in a common-sense fashion, 
the silly sentimentality of the Delia Cruscans.^ Unfor- 
tunately it was almost impossible for him to compose satire 
without being scurrilous. Although he may have possessed 
the virtue of sincerity with which Courthope credits him, he 
invariably picked for his victims men who were too feeble 
to reply effectually. Still the satires, appearing so oppor- 
tunely, made Gifford both famous and feared. The Baviad 
and the Mceviad were placed, without pronounced dissent, 
beside the Dunciad. Mathias said of the author, in all 
seriousness: "He is the most correct poetical writer I 

(1755-1799), Mrs. Piozzi (1741-1831), Bertie Greathead (1759-1826), 
and William Parsons (fl. 1785-1807). They published two small vol- 
umes, The Arno Miscellany (1784) and The Florence Miscellany (1785), 
both marred by affectation, obscurity, tawdry ornamentation, and fran- 
tic efforts at sublimity. The printing of Merry's Adieu and Recall to 
Love started a new series of sentimental verses, in the writing of which 
other scribblers took part: Hannah Cowley (1743-1809), Perdita Rob- 
inson (1752-1800), and Thomas Vaughan (fl. 1 772-1820). Their com- 
bined contributions were gathered in Bell's British Album (1789). 

' Merry had written a Wreath of Liberty (i 790) in praise of revolution- 
ary principles. 

^ Scott said of Gifford: "He squashed at one blow a set of humbugs 
who might have humbugged the world long enough." New Morality 
has a reference to "the hand which brushed a swarm of fools away." 
Byron inserted a similar passage in English Bards, 741-744. 



ENGLISH SATIRE FROM DRYDEN TO BYRON 25 

have read since the days of Pope." Even Byron, so immeas- 
urably Gilford's superior in most respects, was dominated 
so far as to term him "the last of the wholesome satirists"' 
and to refer to him as a "Bard in virtue strong."^ 

The plain truth is that Gifford is not always correct, sel- 
dom wholesome, and never great. Something of his style 
at the worst may be obtained from a single line, 

"Yet not content, like horse-leeches they come," 

of which even the careless Churchill would have been 
ashamed. Gififord wanted good-breeding, and he had no 
geniality; his irascible nature made him intolerant and 
unjust. Moreover he lacked a sense of discrimination and 
proportion; he used a sledge-hammer constantly, often 
when a lighter weapon would have served his purpose. In 
him the artistic satire of Pope seems to have degenerated 
into clumsy and crude abuse. 

Carrying to excess a practice probably begun by Pope, 
with the advice of Swift, Gififord had accompanied his 
satires with copious and dififuse notes, sometimes aflfixing 
a page or more of prose comment to a single line of verse. ^ 
Mathias, whose Pursuits of Literature was, according to 
De Quincey, the most popular book of its day, so exagger- 
ated this fashion that it is often a question in his work to 
decide which is meant for an adjunct to the other — verse 
or prose annotation. 

Thomas James Mathias (i 754-1 835), like Gififord, a Tory, 
with a bigoted aversion to anything new or strange, and 
a firm belief in the infallibility of established institutions, 

» Letters, iv., 485. * English Bards, 701. 

3 Moore speaks sarcastically of this custom in the Preface to Corrup- 
tion and Intolerance (1808): "The practice which has been lately intro- 
duced into literature, of writing very long notes upon very indifferent 
verses, appears to me a very happy invention, as it supplies us with a 
mode of turning dull poetry to account." 



26 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

published Dialogue I of the Pursuits of Literature in May, 
1794, Dialogues II and III in June, 1796, and Dialogue IV 
in 1797. In his theory of satire he insisted on three essen- 
tials: notes, and full ones; anonymity in the satirist; and a 
personal application for the attack. His chosen field in- 
cluded "faults, vices, or follies, which are destructive of 
society, of government, of good manners, or of good lit- 
erature." Mathias is pedantic, ostentatious in airing his 
information, and indefatigable in tracking down revolu- 
tionary ideas. His chief work is a curiosit}'", discursive, 
disorderly, and incoherent, with a versification that is life- 
less and unmelodious.^ 

With the work of Mathias, this cursory summary of the 
strictly formal satire in the eighteenth century comes to a 
natural resting-place. Only a year or two after the Ptir- 
suits of Literature, the Anti-Jacobin began, and in its pages 
we find a more modern spirit. It is now necessary, revert- 
ing to an earlier period, to trace the progress of satire along 
other less formal lines, and to deal with some anomalous 
poems, which, although satiric in tone, are difficult to 
classify according to any logical system. 

The satiric fable had a considerable vogue throughout the 
century, and collections appeared at frequent intervals. - 
Nearly all have allegorical elements and contain little direct 
satire, their main object being to point out and ridicvilc the 
weaknesses and follies of human nature. The octosyllabic 



' Byron said of the Pursuits of Literature: "It is notoriously, as far 
as the poetry gofes, the worst written of its kind; the World has long 
been of but one opinion, viz., that it 's [sic] sole merit lies in the notes, 
which are indisputably excellent" (Letters, ii., 4). 

^ Examples are the Fables of /Esop (1692) of Roger L'Estrange (16 16- 
1704); ^sop at Court, or Select Fables (1702) by Thomas Yalden (1671- 
1736); Msop's Fables (1722) by Samuel Croxall (1680-1752); Fables 
(1744) by Edward Moore (1711-1757); and collections by Nathaniel 
Cotton (1707-1788) and William Wilkie (1721-1772). 



ENGLISH SATIRE FROM DRYDEN TO BYRON 27 

couplet, the favorite measure for fables, was also a popular 
verse form in familiar epistles and humorous tales, modelled 
on the work of Prior, Gay, and Swift. ' Ephemeral political 
satire continued to flourish in rough and indecorous street- 
ballads, sometimes rising almost into literature in the pro- 
ductions of men like Charles Hanbury WilHams (i 708-1 759) 
and Caleb Whitefoord (1734-1810). With the inception of 
the Criticisms on the Rolliad, political verse assumes a 
position of distinct importance in the history of satire. 

The material represented under the title Criticisms on the 
Rolliad was published in the Whig Morning Herald, begin- 
ning June 28, 1784, shortly after the fall of the Fox-North 
coalition and the appointment of the younger Pitt to the 
office of Prime Minister. It presents extracts from a sup- 
posed epic, based on the deeds of the ancestors of John 
Rolle, M. P., who had become the pet aversion of the Whigs. 
The alleged verse excerpts, all of them short, are amalga- 
mated by clever prose comment. The editors included a 
group of young and ambitious Whig statesmen: Dr. Law- 
rence, later Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, who furnished 
the prose sections ; Joseph Richardson (i 755-1 803) ; Richard 
Tickell, already mentioned as the author of The Wreath of 
Fashion; and two former cabinet ministers, General Fitz- 
patrick, the friend of Fox, and Lord John Townshend. The 
object of these men was to belittle and deride the more 
prominent Tories in both Houses, particularly Rolle, Pitt, 
Dundas, and the Tory Bishops, by singling them out, one 
by one, for ridicule. Their verse was a flippant and free 
form of the heroic couplet. Although their main purpose 
was political, they dealt only slightly with party princi- 

'See the Spleen (1737) by Matthew Green (1696-1737); Variety, a 
Tale for Married People (i 732) ; and the poems of Isaac Hawkins Browne 
(i 705-1 760), James Bramston (1694-1744), George Colman, the elder 
(1732-1794), John Dalton (1709-1763), David Garrick (1717-1779). 
John Buncombe (i 729-1 763), and many other poetasters. 



28 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

pies, preferring rather to excite laughter by their personal 
allusions. 

The marked pubHc approbation which attended their 
experiment led the editors to continue their project in a 
series of Probationary Odes for the Laureateship, comprising 
parodies of twenty-two living poets. The odes follow the 
plan of the Pipe of Tobacco (1734) of Isaac Hawkins Browne 
(i 705-1 760), which burlesques the poetry of Cibber, James 
Thomson, Swift, Young, and Ambrose Phillips.' The plan 
of the contributors was further amplified in Political Ec- 
logues and Political Miscellanies, which keep to the original 
policy of vituperation, at the same time showing a striking 
deterioration in the quality of the verse. The first zest 
had grown languid, and in the last collection. Extracts from 
the Album at Streatham (1788), containing poems purporting 
to be by several ministers of state, the verse had no value as 
literature. 

The complete product of these Whig allies is, as a rule, 
clever and pointed, but it is too often coarse and scandalous 
in content. Although it failed in reinstating the Whigs in 
office, it occupies an important position in English political 
satire. Despite its irregular versification and its frequently 
unedifying subject-matter, it contains some brilliant 
sketches and many witty lines. ^ 

A droll and impudent, but not altogether pleasing figure 
of this same period was the Whig satirist. Rev. John Wolcot 
(1738-18 1 9), better known by his nom-de-guerre of Peter 
Pindar, who, making it his especial function to caricature 
George III and his court, earned from Scott the title of "the 
most unsparing calumniator of his time." George, with 

' Probationary Odes also anticipate the more famous iJyec/ed Addresses 
(1812), and the Poetic Mirror (1816) of James Hogg, the Ettrick 
Shepherd. 

^ For less reserved praise of the Rolliad, see Trevelyan's Early History 
of Charles James Fox, page 285. 



ENGLISH SATIRE FROM DRYDEN TO BYRON 29 

his bourgeois habits and petty economies, made a splendid 
subject, and Pindar drew him with the homely realism of 
Hogarth or Gilray, pouring forth a long series of impertinent 
squibs until the monarch's dangerous illness in 1788 gained 
him the sympathy of the nation and roused popular feeling 
against his lampooner. Pindar also engaged in other quar- 
rels, notably with the trio of Tory satirists, Gififord, Math- 
ias, and Canning. ^ His genius was that of the caricaturist, 
and his vogue, like that of most caricaturists, was soon over. 
However, the peculiar flavor of his verses, full as they are 
sometimes of rich humor and grotesque descriptions, is still 
dehghtful, and partly explains the merriment which greeted 
his work at a time when his allusions were still fresh in 
people's minds. It may be added that Pindar shows few 
traces of Pope's influence ; he makes no pretence of a moral 
purpose, and he seldom employs the heroic couplet. 

Professor Courthope suggests that Don Juan owes much 
in style to the satires of Pindar. The question of a possible 
indebtedness will be taken up more in detail in another 
chapter; it is sufficient here to point out that Byron never 
refers to Wolcot by name, and makes only one reference to 
his poetry.^ 

Some of the most powerful social and political satire of the 
century was written, in defence of democracy and liberahsm, 
by the vigorous pen of Robert Burns. ^ His work, however, 
despite the fact that it discussed many of the topics which 

^In A Postscript he speaks of "the unmeaning and noisy lines of two 
things called Baviad and Mcsviad"; while in a note to Out at Last, or the 
Fallen Minister, he presents a sketch of Gifford's life, accusing him of 
heinous crimes, and speaking of the "awkward and obscure inversions 
and verbose pomposity" of the Baviad. Gifford replied in the Epistle 
to Peter Pindar (1800). Mathias and Canning invariably treated Pin- 
■ dar with contempt. 

' Vision of Judgment, 92. 

3 See A Dream (1786), a bitterly satirical address to George III, and 
the Lines Written at Stirling, attacking the Hanoverians. 



30 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

were agitating the English satirists, was not particularly 
influential at the time in England. 

One peculiar work, significant in the evolution of satire 
because of its undoubted influence on a succeeding genera- 
tion, was the Neiv Bath Guide; or Memoirs of the B — r — d 
Family (1766), written by Christopher Anstey (1724-1805).^ 
It consists of a series of letters, most of them in an easy 
anapestic measure with curious rhymes, purporting to be 
from difl"erent members of one family, and satirising life at 
the fashionable watering-place made famous only a few 
years before by Beau Nash. Anstey's method of using 
letters for the purpose of satire was followed by other 
authors,^ but never, until Moore's Two-penny Posthag and 
Fudge Family, with complete success. Other satires of the 
century also employed the anapestic metre in a clever way.'' 

The Tory Anti- Jacobin, a weekly periodical which began 
on November 20, 1797, and printed its last number on July 
9, 1798, appropriately closes the satire of the century, for it 
includes examples of most of the types of satiric verse which 
had been popular since the death of Pope. Founded by 
government journalists, possibly at Pitt's instigation, it 
planned to "oppose papers devoted to the cause of sedition 
and irreligion, to the pay and interests of France." At a 
critical period in English affairs, when the long struggle with 
France and Napoleon was just beginning and many 

' Byron knew the Neiv Bath Guide well, and admired it. In one of 
his youthful poems, an Answer to Some Elegant Verses sent by a Friend 
to the Author he uses four lines of Anstey's poem as a motto. He also 
quotes from it not infrequently in his letters. 

^ See Letters from Simpson the Second to his Dear Brother in Wales 
(1788) and Groans of the Talents (1807), both of which deliberately 
appropriate Anstey's scheme. Both are anonymous. 

^ See the Epistle to my Sisters (1734) by Thomas Lisle; The 'Piscopade, 
a Panegyri-Satiri-Serio-ComicalPoem (1748) by "Porcupinus Pelagius"; 
and Goldsmith's three graceful satires, Retaliation (1774), The Haunch 
of Venison (1776), and the Letter to Mrs. Burtbury (1777). 



ENGLISH SATIRE FROM DRYDEN TO BYRON 3 1 

Whigs were still undecided as to their allegiance, it was the 
purpose of the Anti- Jacobin, as representative of militant 
nationalism, to oppose foreign innovations and to uphold 
time-honored institutions. Each number of the paper con- 
tained several sections: an editorial, or leader; departments 
assigned to Finances, Lies, Misrepresentations, and Mis- 
takes; and some pages of verse, with a prose introduction. 
Gifford, who had been chosen to superintend the publication, 
devoted himself entirely to editorial management, so that 
the responsibility for the verse devolved upon George 
Canning (i 770-1827) and several assistants, among whom 
were Ellis, now an adherent of the Tories, and John Hook- 
ham Frere (1769- 1846). 

The Anti- Jacobin, then, planned first to revive the tra- 
ditions of English patriotism and to rally public opinion to 
the support of king and country. As a secondary but essen- 
tial element of its design, it aimed, especially in its verse, 
to expose the falsity and fatuity of the doctrines of Holcroft, 
Paine, Godwin, and other radical philosophers and econo- 
mists; to ridicule and parody the work of authors of the 
revolutionary school, particularly of the English Lake poets 
and the followers of the German romanticists ; and inciden- 
tally to satirise some of the social and literary follies of the 
age. * Since the verse was submitted by many contributors, 
its tone was not always homogeneous, and it varied from 
playful jocularity to stem didacticism. On the whole, 
however, it had a definite ethical purpose, and avowedly 
championed sound morality and conservative principles. 

The poetry of the Anti-Jacobin includes illustrations of 
many varied satiric forms. New Morality is a set, formal 
satire in conventional couplets and balanced lines, superior 

^ The attitude of the Anti- Jacobin was aknost precisely that already 
adopted by Gifford and Mathias; that is, it represented extreme Tory 
feeUng, and therefore was resolutely opposed to any movement in lit- 
erature which seemed new or strange. 



32 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

in technique to the best work of GifiEord and Mathias, and 
not unworthy of comparison with many of the satires of 
Pope. Acme and Septimiiis, or the Happy Union is a short 
informal verse tale, reminiscent in manner of the unedifying 
personalities in the Rolliad. There are satiric imitations 
of Horace and Catullus. There are parodies of many sorts : 
the Needy Knife Grinder, an artistic parody of Southey's 
sapphics; the Loves of the Triangles, a burlesque of Darwin's 
Loves of the Plants; the Progress of Man, ridiculing the 
tedious didacticism of Payne Knight; and Chevy Chace, a 
parody of the romantic ballad. Hudibrastic couplets are 
used in A Consolatory Address to his Gunboats, by Citizen 
Muskein; anapests, in the Translation of a Letter, in the 
style of Anstey; and doggerel, in the Elegy on the Death 
of Jean Bon Andre. The material of the satire com- 
prehends events in politics, in literature, in philosophy, 
and, to some extent, in society. Thus, in small com- 
pass, the poetry of ^he Anti- Jacobin offers a fruitful field 
for study. 

In more than one respect, too, it furnished suggestions for 
the nineteenth century. Ballynahinch and the Translation 
of a Letter may have had some influence on the manner and 
versification of Moore and Byron. Certain of the Odes, 
notably the imitation of Horace, 111,25, have the delicate 
touch which was to mark the lighter satire of the Smiths 
and Praed, and, later, of Calverley, Barham, and Locker. 
In its rare combination of refined raillery with subtle irony 
and underlying seriousness, the satire of the Anti- Jacobin 
anticipates the brilliance of Punch in the days when Thack- 
eray was a contributor to its pages. The dexterous and 
artistic humor of Canning and his confederates did not 
drive out the cut-and-slash method of Gifford, but it 
did succeed in teaching the lesson that mockery and wit 
are fully as effectual as vituperation in remedying a public 
evil. 



ENGLISH SATIRE FROM DRYDEN TO BYRON 33 

At the time of the subsidence of the Anti- Jacobin in 1798, ' 
the boy Byron, just made a lord by the death of his great- 
uncle on May 19, 1798, was in his eleventh year. From 
this date on, therefore, it is necessary to take account not 
only of the satiric literature which may have influenced his 
work, but also of the events in politics and society which 
were occurring around him and which determined in many 
ways the course of his career as a satirist. From his envi- 
ronment and his associations came often his provocation 
and his material. 

No single verse-satire of note was produced during the 
ten years just preceding English Bards, and Scotch Review- 
ers. It seemed, indeed, for a time, as if satire, fallen into 
feeble hands, would lose any claim to be considered as a 
branch of permanent literature. The increasing power of 
the daily newspapers and their abuse of the freedom of the 
press stimulated the composition of short satiric ballads 
and epigrams, designed to be effective for the moment, 
but most of them hastily conceived, carelessly executed, 
and speedily forgotten. The laws against libel, not consis- 
tently enforced until after the second conviction of Finnerty 
in 18 II and the imprisonment of the Hunt brothers in 18 12, 
were habitually disregarded or evaded, and the utmost 
license of speech seems to have been tolerated, even when 
directed at the royal family. The ethical standard which 
Pope had set for satire and which had been kept in New 
Morality was now forgotten in the strife of faction and the 
play of personal spite. Pope had laid emphasis on style and 
technique, and even Mathias and Gifford had made some 
attempt to follov/ him; but the new school of satirists cared 
little for art. No doubt this degradation of satire may be 
partly attributed to the fact that the really capable writers 

' The Afiti- Jacobin was deserted by its original editors, largely because 
it was becoming too dangerous a weapon for aspiring statesmen to handle. 
A new journal, under the same name, was less successful. 



34 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

of the time — Wordsworth, Coleridge, Scott, and Southcy — 
were engaged in poetry of another sort; but the result was 
that satire became the property of journalists and poetasters 
until Byron and Moore recovered for it some of its former 
dignity. 

It must not be inferred that there was a dearth of material 
for destructive criticism. Few decades of English history 
have oilered a more tempting opportunity to a satirist." 
The Napoleonic Wars, renewed in May, 1803, after the 
brief Peace of Amiens (1802), were not, in spite of an occa- 
sional naval victory, resulting advantageously for England ; 
the disgraceful Convention of Cintra (1808) and the Wal- 
cheren fiasco of 1809 had detracted from British jjrestige; 
and the Peninsular Campaign of 1808 seemed at the time 
to be a disastrous failure. The wearisome conflict had 
accentuated class differences, since, as Byron afterwards 
pointed out in The Age of Bronze, the landed interests only 
increased their wealth as the struggle continued. Many 
reforms were being agitated : Catholic Emancipation, 
opposed resolutely by George III and not made a reality 
until Canning became supreme; the abolition of negro 
slavery, championed persistently by Wilberforce ; and many 
improvements in the suffrage laws, planned by Sir Francis 
Burdett and a small group of liberal statesmen. The older 
leaders, Pitt and Fox, died in the same year (1806), leaving 
weaker and less trusted men to fill their places; while po- 

' It was the era described by Wordsworth in his sonnets Written in 
London, 1802, and London, 1802, the last beginning, 

"Milton! thou should'st be living at this hour: 
England hath need of thee: she is a fen 
Of stagnant waters! Altar, sword, and pen, 
Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower, 
Have forfeited their ancient English dower 
Of inward happiness. We are selfish men." 



ENGLISH SATIRE FROM DRYDEN TO BYRON 35 

litical issues became confused until the establishment of the 
Regency in 18 11 opened the way for the long Tory adminis- 
tration of Lord Liverpool. Some incidents of an unusually 
scandalous character aroused a general spirit of dissatisfac- 
tion. The impeachment of Melville in 1806 for alleged 
peculation of funds in the naval office ; the investigation in 
1806 into the character of the giddy Princess Carohne, 
instigated by the Prince of Wales, who had married her in 
1795 and deserted her within a year; the resignation of the 
Duke of York from the command of the army, following a 
dramatic expose of his relations with Mrs. Clarke and her 
disposal of commissions for bribes ; the duel between Castle- 
reagh and Canning (1809) — all these were unsavory topics of 
the hour. The open profligacy of the heir to the throne 
drew upon him ridicule and contempt, and the frequent 
recurrence of the King's malady left Englishmen in doubt 
as to the duration of his reign. In such an age the ephem- 
eral satires of the newspapers joined with the cartoons 
of Gilray and Cruikshank in assailing evils and expressing 
public indignation. It is, then, remarkable that no writer 
of real genius should have been led to commemorate these 
events in satire. 

The formal satires of the decade are, for the most part, 
lifeless, lacking in wit and art. The most readable of 
them is, perhaps. Epics of the Ton (1807), by Lady Anne 
Hamilton (i 766-1 846), divided into a Male Book and a 
Female Book. It is a gallery of contemporary portraits, 
in which some twenty women and seventeen men, all 
prominent personages, are sketched by one familiar with 
most of the current scandal in court and private life. 
Although it is written in the heroic couplet, the versification 
is singularly crude and careless. Structurally the work has 
little discernible unity, being merely a series of satiric char- 
acterizations without connecting links, and each section 
might have been printed as a separate lampoon. The intro- 



36 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

ductory passage, however, contains a running survey of 
contemporary poetry which was not without influence on 
Byron. Lady Hamilton, clever retailer of gossip though 
she was, belongs to the decadent school of Pope. 

In 1808 Tom Moore published anonymously Corruption 
and Intolerance, following them in the next year with The 
Skeptic, a Philosophical Satire. All three are satires in the 
manner and form of Pope ; but in spite of their fervid patriot- 
ism, they are dull and heavy, and Moore, quick to recognize 
his failure, discreetly turned to a lighter variety of satire for 
which his powers were better fitted. Of other poHtical 
satires of the same period, the best were excited by the 
notorious ministry of "All the Talents," formed by the 
Whigs after the death of their leader, Fox, in 1806. In All 
the Talents! (1807), Eaton Stannard Barrett (i 786-1 820), 
under the name of Polypus, undertook to undermine the 
ministry by assailing its members, following the methods of 
the Rolliad and using the diffuse notes which Mathias had 
popularized. A Whig reply appeared shortly after in All 
the Blocks! (1807) by the indefatigable W. H. Ireland (1777- 
1835), which attacked the newly formed Tory ministry of 
Portland. 

Among the nondescript formal satires of the time should 
be mentioned Ireland's Stultifera Navis (1807), a spiritless, 
impersonal, and general satire, which revives the form of 
Brandt's Narrenschiff (1494), introduced into English in 
Barclay's Ship of Fools (1508). A later satire of Ireland's, 
Chalcographimania (18 14), in feeble octosyllabics, satirises 
collectors and bibliophiles. The Children of Apollo (1794), 
an anonymous satire of an earlier period, seems to have 
afforded Byron more than a suggestion for his English Bards; 
but he was influenced still more b}^ the Simpliciad (1808), 
published anonymously, but actually written by Richard 
Mant ( 1 776-1 848), which is dedicated to the three revolu- 
tionary poets, Wordsworth, Southey, and Coleridge, and 



ENGLISH SATIRE FROM DRYDEN TO BYRON 37 

contains some unmerciful ridicule of their more absurd 
poems. Mant's work, the frank criticism of "a man of 
classical culture and of some poetic impulse," ' merits atten- 
tion as being an almost contemporary outburst of the same 
general character as English Bards. 

The ballad form reappeared in many satires arising from 
the troubled condition of poHtics^ ; but the usual tone of this 
work is scurrilous and commonplace, and dozens of such 
broadsides were composed and forgotten in a day. That 
any one of them had any definite influence on Byron, or on 
the course of satire in general, is highly improbable. What 
is important is that the literary atmosphere for a few years 
before 1809, although it produced no great satires, was sur- 
charged with the satiric spirit, and that Byron, in his youth, 
must have been accustomed to the abusive personalities 
then common in the daily press. Conditions in his day 
encouraged rather than repressed destructive criticism. 

This summary of EngHsh satiric verse between Dryden 
and Byron ends naturally with the year 1809, when the 
latter poet first revealed his true genius as a satirist. Some- 
thing has been suggested of the wide scope and varied char- 
acter of satire from the death of Pope until the end of the 
eighteenth century; the example of Pope has been traced 
through its influence on satire to the time when it degener- 
ated in the work of Mathias and the minor rhymsters of the 
first decade of the new century; and the lighter classes of 
satire have been followed until the date when they became 
artistic in the poetry of the Anti-Jacobin. With many of 
these English predecessors Byron had something in common ; 
from a few he drew inspiration and material. Although 

' See the Nation, volume xciv.. No. 2436, March 7, 1912. 

2 Examples are Elijah's Mantle (1807) by James Sayer (1748-1823), 
with its answer, the anonymous Elijah's Mantle Parodied (1807); the 
Uii Possidetis and Status Quo (1807), The Devil and the Patriot (1807), 
and Canning's famous ballad The Pilot that Weathered the Storm. 



38 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

it will be possible to point out only a few cases in which he 
was indebted to them directly for his manner and phrase- 
ology, it was their work which determined very largely the 
course which he pursued as a satirist in verse. 

With the appearance of English Bards, and Scotch Re- 
viewers, English satire regained something of the stand- 
ing which it had once had in the days of Pope and Swift. 
Men of the highest genius were soon to employ satire as 
a weapon. Moore, the Smiths, Praed, Hood, and Hook 
were to carry raillery and mockery almost to the point of 
perfection; Shelley was to unite satire with idealism and 
a lofty philosophy; and Byron himself, the last master in 
the school of Pope, was to introduce a new variety of 
satire, borrowed from the Italians, and to gain for himself 
the distinction of being perhaps the greatest of our English 
verse-satirists. 



CHAPTER III 
byron's early satiric verse 

Fugitive Pieces, Byron's first volume of verse, actually 
printed in November, 1806, was almost immediately sup- 
pressed at the instance of his elder friend and self-appointed 
mentor. Rev. J. T. Becher, who somewhat prudishly expos- 
tulated with him on the sensuous tone of certain passages. 
Of the thirty-eight separate poems which the collection 
contains, eight, at least, may be classed as legitimate satires. 
The arrangement of the different items is, however, unsys- 
tematic and inconsistent. The lines On a Change of Masters 
at a Great Public School, comprising a prejudiced and impul- 
sive diatribe, are followed by the Epitaph on a Beloved 
Friend, a sincere and heartfelt elegy; while the conven- 
tionally sentimental Lines to Mary, On Receiving Her Picture 
are preceded and followed by satiric poems. These unex- 
pected juxtapositions, inexplicable even on the theory of an 
adherence to chronology, suggest at once the curious way in 
which Byron's versatile and complex nature tended to show 
itself at various times in moods apparently antithetical, 
permitting them often to follow each other closely or even 
to exist at practically the same moment. In his early book 
two characteristic moods, if not more, may be recognized: 
the romantic, whether melancholy, sentimental, or mys- 
terious; and the satiric, whether savage or mocking. It is, 
of course, only with the manifestations of the latter mood 
that we have here to do. 

The motives which urged Byron, at this early age, 

39 



40 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

towards satire arose chiefl}'' from personal dislike, the wish 
to retaliate when some one, by word or deed, had offended 
his vanity or his partialities. His animosities, notoriously 
violent, were often, though not always, hasty, irrational, 
and unjustified. His satire was occasioned by his emotions, 
not by his reason, a fact which partly accounts for his 
fondness for exaggeration and his incapacity for weighing 
evidence. As to his choice of methods, it must be remem- 
bered that careful reading, of a scope and diverseness 
remarkable for one of his years, had given him a compre- 
hensive acquaintance with the English poets, and notably 
with Pope, for whom his preference began early and con- 
tinued long. From Pope, and from Pope's literary de- 
scendant, Gifford, Byron derived the models for much of his 
preliminary work in satire. He also knew Canning and 
Mathias, Lady Hamilton, Mant, and E. S. Barrett, and, in 
a different field, he was familiar with the lighter verse of 
Swift, Prior, Anstey, the Rolliad, and the Anti- Jacobin. 
It was natural, indeed almost inevitable, that these first 
exercises in satire should reflect something of the style and 
manner of poems with which Byron had an acquaintance 
and of which he had made a study. 

The first printed satire of his composition was the poem 
entitled On a Change of Masters at a Great Public School, 
dated from Harrow, July, 1805, when his period of residence 
there had almost closed. Dr. Drury, Headmaster of 
Harrow, having resigned. Dr. Butler had been chosen to 
fill the vacancy. Against Dr. Butler, Byron had no per- 
sonal grievance; but resenting an appointment which, pass- 
ing over Dr. Drury's son, Mark Drury, had selected an 
utter stranger, the boy launched an invective at a teacher 
whom he scarcely knew, and predicted the downfall of the 
school under his administration. Characteristically enough 
he was soon ready to avow his regret for his rash outburst. 
Referring to Dr. Butler, he said in his Diary : " I treated him 



byron's early satiric verse 41 

rebelliously , and have been sorry ever since. ' ' In the details 
of Byron's conduct at this time are exemplified several of 
his traits as a satirist: impetuous judgment, energetic at- 
tack, and eventual repentance. 

The use of the Latin type names, Probus and Pomposus, 
applied to Dr. Drury and Dr. Butler, as well as a certain 
technical skill in the management of the heroic couplet, 
indicates that Byron had perused Pope to his own advan- 
tage. Already he had caught something of the tricks of 
antithesis and repetition of which the elder poet had been 
so fond, and he had derived from him the power of condens- 
ing acrimony into a single pointed couplet. Such lines as : 

"Of narrow brain, yet of a narrower soul, 
Pomposus holds you in his harsh control; 
Pomposus, by no social virtue sway'd, 
With florid jargon, and with vain parade,"' 

have a hint of the vigor and vehemence of Pope himself, 
while they display, at the same time, the unfairness and 
exaggerated bitterness, so rarely mitigated by good humor, 
which were to distinguish the longer English Bards. 

This poem, after all, was a mere scholastic experiment 
to be read only by those in close touch with events at 
Harrow. Fugitive Pieces contained also Byron's earliest 
effort at political satire. An Impromptu, unsigned, and 
derogatory to Fox, had appeared in the Morning Post for 
September 26, 1806, only a few months after the death of 
the great Whig statesman, and the schoolboy, even then 
headed toward liberalism, came to the Minister's defence 
in a reply published in the Morning Chronicle in October of 
the same year. The opening couplet : 

"Oh, factious viper! whose envenomed tooth. 
Would mangle still the dead, perverting truth," 
^Poetry, i., 17. 



42 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

proved that he possessed, with Gifford, the singular faculty 
of working himself, with very little cause, into a furious rage. 
When once he had let his wrath master him, he was uncon- 
trollable, and he found satisfaction in nothing so much as in 
affixing scurrilous epithets to those who had aroused him. 
Until he had studied the Italian satirists, he was almost 
incapable of cool dissection of an enemy's faults or short- 
comings, and even then he never acquired the virtue of 
self-control. 

This essay at political satire was not followed by other 
excursions into politics, probably because of the poet's 
temporary indifference to the situation in England at the 
time. On January 15, 1809, in writing his solicitor, Hanson, 
concerning his entrance into the House of Lords, he said : 
" I cannot say that my opinion is strongly in favor of either 
party."' Not until after his return to England from his 
travels in 18 ii and the beginning of his friendship with 
Moore, Hunt, and other active Whigs, did his interest in 
politics revive and his pen become a party weapon. 

The last of the three classical satires in couplets to be 
found in Fugitive Pieces is Thoughts Suggested by a College 
Examination (1806), composed at Cambridge. It opens 
with a burlesque sketch of Magnus, a college tutor, but 
soon broadens into a general indictment of pedantry and 
scholastic sycophancy. Byron himself had desired to go to 
Oxford, and he never felt himself in sympathy with either 
the instructors or the educational system of his Alma Mater. 
This particular poem, however, is merely an outburst of 
boyish spleen, remarkable for nothing except a kind of 
sauciness not unknown in the university freshman. 

Fugitive Pieces had been privately printed, with the 
addition of twelve poems, and with two poems omitted, 
as Poems on Various Occasions in January, 1807, and in the 
summer of the same year a new collection, consisting partly 

' Letters, i., 209. 



byron's early satiric verse 43 

of selections from the two previous volumes and partly of 
hitherto unprinted work, was published under the title 
Hours of Idleness. A final edition, called Poems Original 
and Translated, appeared in 1808, comprising thirty-eight 
separate poems, five of them new. Among the poems in 
these volumes, and other verses of the same period, drawn 
from various sources and since gathered together in Mr. 
Coleridge's authoritative edition of Byron's poetry, there 
are several satires, many of them interesting in themselves 
and nearly all illuminating in their relation to the author's 
later production. 

Childish Recollections (1806),' a sentimental reverie, is 
satiric in part, though it is devoted mostly to eulogies of 
Byron's companions at Harrow. In the couplet, 

"Let keener bards delight in Satire's sting, 
My fancy soars not on Detraction's wing," 

he disavows any satiric intent, but this does not prevent 
him from indulging in some additional criticism of Dr. 
Butler. Regret for this passage induced Byron to omit 
the entire poem from Poems Original and Translated, and 
in ordering the excision he wrote Ridge: "As I am now 
reconciled to Dr. Butler I cannot allow my satire to appear 
against him." 

Damoetas, a short fragment of truculent characteriza- 
tion, may be a morbid bit of self-portraiture, but is more 
probably a cynical sketch of some acquaintance. The de- 
scription is excessively bitter : — 

"From every sense of shame and virtue wean'd. 
In lies an adept, in deceit a fiend ; — 
Damoetas ran through all the maze of sin, 
And found the goal, when others just begin." 

' It is probable that Byron's verses are modelled somewhat on the 
Epistle on His Schoolfellows at Eton (1766) by his relative and guardian. 
Lord Carlisle (i 748-1 825). 



44 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

The poems so far mentioned as composed by Byron before 
1809 have been formal exercises in the manner of Pope, 
tentative efforts in the genre of which English Bards was to 
be Byron's best example. Even in this early period, how- 
ever, another phase of his satiric spirit appears, which hints 
of the future Don Juan; it trifles in a lighter vein, with less 
of invective and more of banter, and the style is lent a 
humorous touch by the use of odd and uncommon rhymes. 
The half-genial playfulness of these poems is decidedly dif- 
ferent from the earnestness and intensity of Damoefas, and 
makes them akin to the familiar verse of Prior, Cowper, 
and Praed. One of the cleverer specimens is the poem with 
the elaborate title Lines to a Lady Who Presented to the 
Author a Lock of Her Hair Braided with His Own, and Ap- 
pointed a Night in December to Meet Him in the Garden, 
in which thirteen rhymes out of twent5^-two are double. 
These verses, printed first in Fugitive Pieces, are possibly the 
earliest in which evidence may be found of a sportive 
mood in Byron's work. Their tone is both ironic and 
comic, and possible romance is turned into something ri- 
diculous by a satiric use of realism. The poem is also one 
of the few examples of Byron's employment of octosyllabic 
couplets for satiric purposes. 

To Eliza (October 9, 1806), written to Elizabeth Pigot, 
Byron's early correspondent and confidante, contains some 
cynical observations on marriage, with at least one line 
that might have fitted into Don Juan : 

"Though women are angels, yet wedlock 's the devil." 

It is composed in stanzas made up of four anapestic lines. 
Granta, a Medley, written October 28, 1806, in one of the 
bursts of rhyming not uncommon with him at that period, 
treats, in a jocular fashion, of college life at Cambridge. Its 
chief interest lies in some of its peculiar rhymes, such as 



byron's early satiric verse 45 

triangle-wrangle, historic use-hypothenuse, before him- 
tore 'em, crude enough in themselves, but prophetic of 
better skill to come, and in the fact that it uses the common 
quatrain of four-stressed lines, with alternate rhymes, a 
measure seldom found in Byron's satire. To the Sighing 
Strephon, in a six-line stanza, while occasionally serious, is 
actually the reflection of a frivolous mood, and contains light 
satire. The trivial nature of these poems as contrasted with 
the vehemence of some other of his early satires, indicates 
that Byron's satiric spirit even at that time was fickle and 
changeable, dependent often on his environment and vary- 
ing constantly in response to alterations in his own temper. 
It is noticeable too that he was experimenting with several 
metrical forms, and trying his hand at extraordinary rhymes. 
Byron's path as an aspiring author was not always a 
smooth one, even before his name became generally known. 
Fugitive Pieces had been harshly criticised by several of his 
acquaintances, and, as we have seen, the objections of the 
hypercritical Becher had led to the destruction of the 
entire edition. But the proud young lord was not always 
tamely submissive to correction. In December, 1806, he 
wrote in Hudibrastic couplets the verses To a Knot of Un- 
generous Critics, which express the same sort of injured 
pride and resentment that he afterwards showed toward 
Jeffrey and the Edinburgh reviewers : 

"Rail on, rail on, ye heartless crew! 
My strains were never meant for you; 
Remorseless rancour still reveal, 
And damn the verse you cannot feel." 

Byron's anger in these lines was directed apparently at cer- 
tain ladies of Southwell, the little town where most of his 
Harrow vacations were spent ; but though he mentioned one 
"portly female," he had not yet reached the point where he 



46 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

ventured to call his enemies by name. This reserve, how- 
ever, did not prevent him from breaking out in some caustic 
personal satire, in the course of which he did not spare the 
characters of the ladies in question. The same provocation 
led him to compose the Soliloquy of a Bard in the Country 
(1806), in heroic couplets, in which he seems to pick three 
persons — "physician, parson, dame" — as responsible for 
the adverse comment on Fugitive Pieces. In these satires 
the occasional sharpness of single phrases does not conceal 
a boyish timidity, which is evidence that Byron had not 
yet been stung enough to make him realize or display his full 
power. Neither of the poems was published during his life- 
time, and they probably served only to gratify his revenge 
in private among his friends. 

Possibly the last, and certainly the most cynical, of these 
early satires is the well-known Inscription on the Monument 
of a Newfoundland Dog, dated by Byron from Newstead 
Abbey, October 30, 1808, though the animal did not die 
until November i8th. The twenty-six lines of the poem are 
now carved on a monument at Newstead, with an elaborate 
prose epitaph. Their misanthropy and savagery recall 
the contempt which Swift expressed for humanity in such 
poems as The Beasts' Confession and the Lines on the Day of 
Judgment. An appropriate text for Byron's verses might 
have been taken from Swift's letter to Pope, September 29, 
1725 : "I heartily hate and detest that animal called man." 
Doubtless Byron's mood is due in part to an affectation of 
cynicism which reappeared frequently throughout his life; 
his hatred of mankind, if not actually assumed, was by no 
means the deep-seated emotion that agitated Swift. 

A retrospective survey of the material so far considered 
again fastens our attention on the singular complexity of 
Byron's satiric spirit. In a body of work comparatively 
meagre in content, he had used both invective and mockery, 
severity and humor. He had tried various metrical forms, 



BYRON S EARLY SATIRIC VERSE 47 

some dignified and some colloquial. There is less to be said, 
however, for the intrinsic merit of the satires. No one of 
them is brilliant, nor does any one suggest marked intellec- 
tual power. The invective is too often mere indiscriminate 
ranting; the wit is, for the most part, sophomoric; and the 
assumption of superiority in one so young is, at times, 
exceedingly offenvsive. Here and there in single lines and 
passages, there are indications of latent genius; but many 
other young poets have shown as much. 

These exercises, however, imitative and crude though 
they were, were training him in style and giving him confi- 
dence. When his anger was fully roused by the Edinburgh 
Review, he found himself prepared with an instrument for 
his purposes. English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers, with all 
its faults, is not the product of an amateur in satire, but of 
a writer who, after much study of the methods of Pope 
and Gifford, has learned how to express his wrath in virulent 
couplets. 



CHAPTER IV 

"ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS" 

English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers, Byron's first long 
poem, is, like the Dunciad and the Baviad, a satire prin- 
cijially on literary people. It was not, however, in its incep- 
ti(^n, planned to be either so pretentious or so comprehensive 
as it afterwards came to be. In a letter to Elizabeth Pigot, 
October 26, 1807, when Byron was still an undergraduate of 
Trinity College, Cambridge, he referred casually to "one 
poem of 380 lines, to be published (without my name) in a 
few weeks, with notes," and added, "The poem to be pub- 
lished is a satire."^ The manuscript draft of the work as 
thus conceived contained 360 lines. 

The actual stimulus for the enlargement of the poem came, 
however, from an external source. Injured vanity, the 
occasion of the earlier Soliloquy of a Bard in the Country, 
was also responsible for the completion of the half-formed 
satire of which Byron had written to Miss Pigot. On 
Febrviary 26, 1808, he wrote Becher: "A most violent 
attack is preparing for me in the next number of the Edin- 
burgh Review.''^ The attack alluded to, a criticism of 
Hours of Idleness, unsigned but probably contributed by 
Brougham, appeared in the Edinburgh Rcvieiv for January, 
1807; but that number, in accordance with a practice not 
then uncommon, was delayed for over a month in going 
through the press, and was not actually on sale until March. 

^Letters, i., 47. ^Letters, i., 183. 

48 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS 49 

The article itself, which has since become notorious for its 
bad taste, began with the scathing sentence: "The poetry 
of this young lord belongs to the class which neither gods 
nor men are said to permit." Its attitude was certainly not 
calculated to encourage or soothe the youthful poet, and 
with his usual impetuosity, he at once sought a means of 
redress. Adding an introduction and a conclusion to his 
embryonic poem, and inserting an attack on JefiErey, whom 
he supposed to be his critic, he had the whole privately 
printed, as British Bards, in the autumn of 1808. This 
work, revised and enlarged, but with some excisions,^ 
making a poem of 696 lines, was published anonymously^ in 
March, 1809, under the title English Bards, and Scotch 
Reviewers. A letter of January 25, 1809, to Dallas proves 
that the poet had intended to conceal his authorship by 
inserting a slighting reference to "minor Byron, "^ but this 
ruse was not retained in the published volume. 

The satire, as Byron told Medwin, made a prodigious 
impression. A second edition in October, 1809, was ampli- 
fied by several interpolated passages so that it comprised 
1050 lines. A third and a fourth edition were demanded 
while Byron was on his travels, and the fifth, including the 
1070 lines of the poem as it is ordinarily printed to-day, was 
suppressed by him in 18 11. In the second and succeeding 
editions his name was on the title-page. 

His friend, Dallas, who had been favored with the perusal 
of the poem in manuscript, had suggested as a title. The 
Parish Poor of Parnassus, but Byron, with some wisdom, 
rejected this as too humorous, ^ and chose English Bards, 
and Scotch Reviewers. The present title indicates clearly 
the double object of the satire; for though it is, in one sense, 
an attempt at retaliation upon the editors of the Edinburgh 
Review, it is, in another, an eager and deliberate defence of 
the Popean tradition in poetry. It combines the motives 

^ Letters, I., \6t. ^ Letters, [., 211. ^ Letters, i., 212. 



50 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

of Churchill's Apology and Gifford's Baviad in that it aims, 
like the first, to castigate hostile critics, and like the second, 
to ridicule contemporary poets. Personal spite urged him 
to assail the "Scotch marauders," Jeffrey, Homer, and 
their coterie; but he had no individual grudge to pay in 
satirising the "Southern dunces," Wordsworth, Southey, 
Moore, and others. His attack upon them was actuated by 
the same sort of narrow spirit which he had condemned in 
his critics. The spectacle of Byron posing as an overthrower 
of intolerant reviewers, and in the same poem outdo- 
ing them in unjust and prejudiced criticism is not likely to 
leave the reader with an exalted opinion of the author's 
consistency. 

Presumably influenced by the example of Gilford, Byron 
deluded himself into believing that it was his mission to pro- 
test against the excesses of romanticism in poetry, and to 
engage "the swarm of idiots" who were infecting literature. 
He was to be "self-constituted judge of poesy"; and in pur- 
suance of his design, the satire became a gallery of many 
figures, some sketched graphically, others merely limned in 
a line or a phrase. It is to Byron's credit that his chosen 
victims were not, like those of Pope and Gilford, all poetas- 
ters. Doubtless there was a certain amount of chance in 
the causes that led him to be the opponent of men who have 
since been recognized as representative poets of their age; 
but in spite of the fact that Wordsworth and Coleridge, 
Southey and Moore, may not have been fully appreciated in 
1809, they were, nevertheless, authors of reputation whom 
it was not altogether discreet to attack. As for Scott, he 
was the favorite writer of the period and no mean antago- 
nist. Herford points out the daring character of the satire 
in saying: "It is a kind of inverted Dunciad; the novice 
falls upon the masters of his day, as the Augustan Master 
upon the nonentities of his." 

The originality of the satire was questioned as far back 



"ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS" 5I 

as 1822 in jBlakwood's Magazine, which, in a Letter to 
Paddy, said: "English Bards is, even to the most wretched 
point of its rhyme, most grossly and manifestly borrowed."^ 
That this is inexcusable exaggeration hardly needs asserting ; 
yet it is not detrimental to Byron to state that he had been 
anticipated in many of his criticisms to such an extent that 
his views could have offered little of novelty to his readers, 
and that some of his lines are reminiscent of the work of 
previous English satirists. He was no direct plagiarist, 
but he had a tenacious memory, and he had read omniv- 
orously in Pope, Churchill, Gifford, and the minor satirists 
of his own time. It is not strange that he occasionally 
repeats phrases which had become, by inheritance, the 
common property of all English satirists. 

Continuing a practice which, as we have seen, was insti- 
tuted by Oldham and adopted by Pope and Gifford, Byron 
evidently intended to follow the general plan of the first 
satire of Juvenal. Pope, in the Satires and Epistles Imi- 
tated, had printed the Latin poems of Horace in parallel 
columns with his own verses.^ Gifford, in the Baviad, had 
placed sections of the text of Persius in notes at the bottom 
of the page, and had adhered rather closely to the structure 
of his Latin model. Byron, however, soon perceived the 
restrictions which such procedure would entail, and after 
indicating three examples of imitation in the first hundred 
lines, neglected Juvenal in order to pursue an independent 
course. 3 Aside from these acknowledged imitations, it is 
interesting to notice that one couplet from English Bards, 

' Blackwood's, ix., 461. 

' This practice was ridiculed by his enemy. Lady Montagu, in the lines: 
"On the one side we see how Horace thought, 
And on the other how he never wrote." 

3 The opening couplet of English Bards is a paraphrase of the first 
two lines of Juvenal, I. Other imitations occur in lines 87-88 f jM\onal, 
I., 17-18) and lines 93-94 (Juvenal, I., 19-21). 



52 LORD IJVKON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

"I, too, can scrawl, aiul once ni)()n a time 
I i)()urc(l aloni; the town a Hood of rh\'nic,"' 

have some resemblance to two lines of (iilTord's translation 
of juN-enal's first satire, 

"1, too, can write — and at a pedant's frown, 
Once poured my fustian rhetoric on the town." 

These few instances excepted, there is no evidence in the 
poem of horrowiufj; from the Latin satirists, nor is any one 
of them mentioned or quoted in Eiijilish Bards. 

1 1, is curious that Byron, instead of striking:; out for himself 
in an orii^Miial way, should ha\e repeated complacently 
many of the time-honoriHl ideas which had become almost 
fixed conventions in satire. It is customary, of course, for 
the satirist to complain of contemporary conditions and to 
vSigh for the j^ood old days; indccil, it would be possible to 
collate pavSsai;es from satirists in an unbroken line from 
Juvenal to William Watson, each makini:; it clear that the 
aj^c in which the writer li\es is decadent. As far back as 
1523 we llnd in the verse preface to Rede Mr and he notl 
wrothc, a loupK't full of this lament: 

"This worKle is worsse than evyr it was. 
Never so depe in miserable deeaye." 

Marxell, in An llislorual Poem, wishes for the t^lorious 
])(M-iod of tlie Tudors; l)r\(len, in the I'lpisllr to Ilcnry 
/Iii:,dcii, ILsij., cries out ai^ainst "our tlciicnerate times"; 
and Pope, in the Piinciad, has a familiar reference to "these 
de,i.:;en'rate days." The same strain is repeated in Vounj^,^ 
it\ Johnson,-' in Cowper, ' in (alTord.^ and ev^en in Barrett.* 

' Etii^lish fianls, 47-48. ' Satires, ill., 15-18. 

J Loudon, 35-30. * Table Talk, 571-57:;. 

' Baviad, 215 IT. * All the Talents, ii., 46-47. 



ENGLISH IJAKDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS" 53 

The tone of Byron's jeremiad differs very little from that 
of those which have been cited : 

"Time was, ere yet in these degenerate days 
Ignoble themes obtained mistaken praise, 
When Sense and Wit with Poesy allied, 
No fabled Graces, flourished side by side."' 

It is not inappropriate to point out that this ideal era to 
which Byron refers had been termed by Pope, who lived 
in it, "a Saturnian Age of lead."- It required a maturer 
Byron to satirise this very satiric convention as he did in 
the first line of The Age of Bronze: 

"The 'good old times' — all times when old are good." 

Another generally accej^ted custom for the satirist was 
the apologetic formality of calling upon some supposedly 
more powerful censor to revive and scourge folly. Thus 
Young had asked, 

"Why slumbers Pope, who leads the tuneful train. 
Nor hears the virtue which he loves complain. "^ 

Whitehead's State Dunces had oj^encd with a similar invoca- 
tion to Pope. At the end of the eighteenth century it was 
Gififord who seemed to have sunk into a torpor. Thus we 
find Canning in Neiv Morality attcm|)ting to rouse him : 

"Oh, where is now that promise? why so long 
Sleep the keen shafts of satire and of song?" 

Hodgson, Byron's friend, in his Gentle Alterative had also 
appealed to Gifford. In the preface to the second edition 
of English Bards, Byron had, in his turn, regretted the list- 
lessness of Gifford, and had modestly professed himself a 

' English Bards, 103-106. ' Dunciad, i., 28. 3 Satires, i., 35-36. 



54 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

mere country practitioner officiating in default of the 
regular physician ; while in the satire itself he again sounded 
the familiar note, repeating the interrogation of Canning: 

'"Why slumbers Giftord?' once was asked in vain; 
Why slumbers Giflord? let us ask again."" 

The emphatic language which he used elsewhere in admit- 
ting his indebtedness and even his inferiority to Giftord is, 
however, proof of the sincerity of this outburst. 

A third convention, established if not originated in 
English by Pope, is the obligation felt by the satirist to pose 
as a defender of public morals and to insist upon his ethical 
purpose. Byron, partly affected by this tradition, partly 
believing himself to be, like Giftord, a champion of law and 
order in literature, tries to persuade his public that he is 
instigated entirely by lofty motives in giving vent to his 
anger : 

"For me, who, thus unasked, have dared to tell 
My country, what her sons should know too well, 
Zeal for her honor bade me here engage 
The host of idiots that infest her age."" 

It will not do, however, to take this assertion too seriously, 
especially since incitements of a far different sort seem to 
have occasioned several sections of the poem. 

Besides conforming to the conventional practice of his 
predecessors in these three important respects, B},Ton linked 
himself with them by so many other ties that even in mat- 
ters of minor detail En(:ilish Bards resembles the classical 
satires of Pope and Giftord. As a satire it may justly be 
compared with the D unclad and the Baviad, and ma>' be 
judged by the standards which are applied to them. 

> English Bards, 819-820. ' English Bards, 991-994- 



ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS" 55 

An analysis of English Bards is rendered difficult by the 
lack of any coherent plan in the poem, and its consequent 
failure to follow any logical order in treating its material. 
The author wanders from his avowed theme to satirise the 
depravity of the Argyle Institution and to ridicule the anti- 
quarian folly of Aberdeen and Elgin, slipping, moreover, 
easily from critics to bards and from bards to critics, as a 
train of ol)scrvations occurs to him. The .same excuse may 
be pleaded for him that Mathias advanced in his own behalf : 
that an informing personality lends a kind of unity to the 
poem. It may be said, too, that the classical satire, not 
aiming as a rule to be compact and close in structure, is very 
likely to become a panorama in which figures pass in long 
review. This impression is conveyed in English Bards by 
the use of stock phrases which serve to introduce each new 
character as if he were appearing in a parade of celebrities. ' 

Under the false impression that Jeffrey was responsible 
for the scornful review of Hours of Idleness, Byron singled 
him out for violent abuse, though he did not neglect his 
colleagues, "the allied usurpers on the throne of taste." 
For his attack on critics as a class Byron could have found 
much encouragement in previous English satire. Dryden 
had expressed a common enough feeling of authors, in the 
lines : 

"They who write ill, and they who ne'er durst write. 
Turn critics out of mere revenge and spite. "^ 

Pope had condemned the "bookful blockhead, ignorantly 
read," who knows no method in his calling but censure.^ 
Young had carried out rather tamely in his third satire his 
boastful intention of falling upon critics: 

' See English Bards, 144-145, 165-166, 202, 235, etc. 

" Prologue to the second part of the Conquest of Granada, 1-2. 

3 Essay on Criticism, 610-630. 



56 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

"Like the bold bird upon the banks of Nile, 
That picks the teeth of the vile crocodile." 

Aside from these more or less incidental aspersions, at 
least two entire satires had been written upon critics. 
Cuthbert Shaw, enraged by what he thought an unfair 
account of his Race (1762) in the Critical Review, prefixed 
to the second edition of that poem an Address to the Critics, 
in which he heaped vituperation on all the reviewers of his 
time. Only a few months before this, Churchill in his 
Apology Addressed to the Critical Reviewers (1761) had con- 
structed a satire very similar in motive and plan to Byron's 
English Bards. A fairly close parallel may, in fact, be 
evolved between the two poems. Both are replies to the 
severe comments of critics on an earlier work'; both assail 
Scotch editors, the victim being, in the one case, Smollett, 
in the other, Jeffrey ; both digress from the main theme, the 
one to renew the controversy with actors begun in the 
Rosciad, the other to satirise a new movement in poetry. 

It is characteristic of both Churchill and Byron that, 
instead of attempting to defend their verses, they devote 
all their attention to reviling their reviewers. Byron's 
retaliation is less vigorous than Churchill's; indeed it may 
be said that English Bards is weakest in the place where it 
should have been most effective — in the passage directed 
at Jeffrey. Byron compares his antagonist to the hangman 
Jeffries, and describes in burlesque fashion the duel between 
him and Moore; but he fastens on him no epithet worth 

' The Apology was written in response to a scathing article on the 
Rosciad, printed in the Critical Review for March, 1761. This periodi- 
cal, ultra-Tory in its principles, made a point of decrying, any work 
which was by a Whig author, or expressed any sympathy with liberal 
ideas. Though the editor, Tobias Smollett, was able to exculpate him- 
self from the charge, Churchill deemed him accountable for the uncom- 
plimentary review and, without naming him, described him in his satire 
as "alien from God, and foe to all mankind." 



"ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS" 57 

remembering and abuses him in lines which are neither 
incisive nor witty. 

Churchill had made an especial point of the anonymous 
character of the articles in the Critical Review, and had said 
of the editors : 

"Wrapt in mysterious secrecy they rise, 
And, as they are unknown, are safe and wise."'' 

Hodgson, in his Gentle Alterative (1809), had referred to a 
similar custom of the Edinburgh Review, by attacking, 

"Chiefly those anonymously wise. 
Who skulk in darkness from Detection's eyes." 

The allusion in English Bards to "Northern Wolves, that 
still in darkness prowl "^ may be explained by Byron's 
objection to this practice, though he chooses to dwell on it 
very little. 

The Apology had accused the critics of dissimulation and 
had alleged that their pages were full of misstatements — 

"Ne'er was lie made that was not welcome there. "^ 

Byron made the same charge in advising contributors to the 
Edinburgh Review not to stick to the truth, 

"Fear not to lie, 't will seem a sharper hit."'* 

It is quite apparent that the "self-elected monarchs" whom 
Churchill treated so cavalierly in 1761 had no more popu- 
larity among sensitive authors than did the body of critics 
whom Hodgson styled "self-raised arbiters of sense and 
wit, "5 whom GifiEord spoke of as "mope-eyed dolts placed 

* The Apology, iio-iii. ^ English Bards, 42g. 

3 The Apology, 44. '• English Bards, 71. ' Gentle Alterative. 



58 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

by thoughtless fashion on the throne of taste "^ and whom 
Byron, in much the same phraseology, scorned as, 

"Young tyrants, by themselves misplaced, 
Combined usurpers on the Throne of Taste. " 

Churchill, rash though he was, was cautious enough not 
to print his opponents' names, and they are to be discovered 
only through definite allusions. Byron, on the other hand, 
brought his satire into the open, and ridiculed "smug 
Sydney," "classic Hallam," "paltry Pillans," "blundering 
Brougham," and other contributors to the Edinburgh, never 
hesitating to give a name in full. Even Lord and Lady 
Holland, later Byron's close friends, were included among 
the victims, as patrons of the Whig Revieiu. 

These resemblances between English Bards and some 
earlier satires of a like nature do not prove Byron a mere 
imitator. Enough has been shown, perhaps, to make it 
clear that his work belongs to a definite school of poetry, 
and that his verses show no marked originality. At the 
same time he never stoops to direct plagiarism, and what- 
ever similarities exist with other poems are largely those 
of style and spirit, not of phraseology. 

But there is much more in English Bards than the out- 
burst against critics; dexterously Byron proceeded himself 
to don the garb of judge and to pass sentence on men older 
and better known than he. He had early adopted a con- 
servative attitude towards the versification and subject- 
matter of poetry, a position which he preserved in theory 
throughout his life.^ Having learned to use glibly the 
catchwords of the Augustans, he ventured to praise Crabbe, 
Campbell, Rogers, and Gifford for adhering tenaciously to 

' Baviad, 200-201. 

^ It is curious that Byron's views on poetry were not very different 
from those held by Jefifrey. Both men believed in maintaining the com- 
mon-sense traditions of the eighteenth century. 



"ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS" 59 

the principles of Sense, Wit, Taste, and Correctness estab- 
lished by Pope. Acting on this basis, he was justified 
in condemning his own age for its disregard of what he con- 
sidered to be the standard models of poetic expression.^ 
Under the tutelage of Gifford, he had acquired a distaste 
for novelty which led him to look upon the romanticists 
as Gifford looked upon the Delia Cruscans, and which 
induced him to carry his defence of custom and tradition 
almost to the verge of bigotry. 

Something must be allowed, too, for the operation of 
contemporary ideas upon Byron. The leaders of the so- 
called Romantic Movement, partly because many of them 
had associated themselves with the Jacobin party in 
England, partly because their poetry seemed strange, were 
met from the first with opposition in many quarters.^ 
Language of a tenor hostile to their work may be met with 
in Mathias, the And- Jacobin, Epics of the Ton, the Simpli- 
ciad, and Hodgson's Gentle Alterative. The suggestions for 
many of the anti-romantic views since attributed to Byron 
alone came doubtless from other satirists, whose accusa- 
tions Byron fitted into telling phrases. 

An excellent illustration of this is to be found in Byron's 
unprovoked attack upon Scott, in which the younger poet, 
seizing upon the well-known fact that Scott had received 
money for his verses, terms him "hireling bard" and 
"Apollo's venal son." Perhaps Byron may have shared 
with Young the snobbish notions about money expressed 
in the latter's couplet : 

I "There can be no worse sign for the taste of the times than the 
depreciation of Pope" {Letters, v, 559). 

» W. Tooke, in his edition of Churchill's Works (1804), expresses one 
phase of contemporary opinion in speaking of "the simphcity of a later 
school of poetry, the spawn of the lakes, consisting of a mawkish com- 
bination of the nonsense verse of the nursery with the rhodomontade 
of German Mysticism and Transcendentalism" (i., 189). 



<)») lOKD H\ KON AS A SAIIKIsr IN \ IKSIs 

"His [Apollo's] sacrod in(luoiu-i> iionhm- sluniKl l>o sold; 
"r is arrant simony to sini; for _L;old."' 

It is more iirohaltlo. lu)\vo\-cr, that ho had in mind a passaL;c 
from /•"/'/V.v of the To)i, in which v^ciUt's "\\\>ll-paid la\-s" 
had luHMi iiu'nlioni>d in a contiMnptnons manner. "' h^vou 
in his oharuo that the plot of the Lay of the Last Minstrel 
was "incoiii^ruous and absurd." Hxron had boon anticiiiatotl 
in a note to .1// the Talents. ■'■ The whole tirade a,>;ainst. 
.Seott in l''ji;Jish /^<//'(/.v was part ieularlx- unfortunate heeause, 
as was revealed latiM", that author had riMuonstrati^d with 
|i>lTre\' on the "olTiMisixe eritieism" oi Uoiiis of Idleness. 

Hxron's anta.uonism t(» the so-imIKhI Lake Seluml of poets, 
Wordsworth, C\^leridi;e, and Soul hew be^an earh' ami con- 
tinued Ion;;. in iSot) it is improhal>K> that \\c had anv 
aequaintanee with any mie o( the three; yet he plaeed them 
in a eonspieutnis and tmen\-iaMe position in l'Jii!_lish Hards. 
His priinar\- moti\i\s in attaekim; them ha\i> alread\- I'een 
indieated. C\)nsiderinj; them as faddists who were lowerinv:; 
the tlis.:nit\- o( [he author's ealliui^ and de.i^radini; poetic 
st\K\ he follow c'll the Sinif^lleiad in iH^ndcMunim; tluMU for 
the contemptiMc natin'c o\' their subjct't-mat ter, for their 
simple iliiiion, for their fondness t\>r the wild anil imnatural, 
and for their studied ax'oidance o( C(>n\cntii>nalit w 

vSinitlu\\'s lirst \-crse had appeared in 1704; while Words- 
wi>rth and C^i>Ieriili.;e had been reall\- intnuluced to the 

■ /•■/';.s7/<'.v /(> /*()/)(•, ii., i(>5. 

'To tliis uttorly iiiijust. strictuii" Scott in.uU' .1 calm w\Av in liis 
rii-lair to Marniio)! {\^y^): "1 lU'Vcr auiKl eoiu'oivr Imw an arraiitjo- 
im-nt bctwi-i'ii an aullu'i aiui his puMisIicrs, if satisfactory to the persons 
concerned, couiil alTonl matter of censin"e to any third party." CVr- 
tainly Ryron came {o hv a i;ross i^tTcnder in tliis rospoct liimself, and 
\vl\en, in iSio, lie was lia.ui;lin>; witti Murray over the price of /><>« Juan, 
these l>oyisl\ censures, if they met his eye, nnist have roused a smile. 

•' "Tlie plot is alisurd, and the antique costume of the laiii^uai^c is 
disgusting, because it is uimaturul " (.1// the Talaits, page dS). 



" 1':n(;i,isii uauds, ani) s( orcii ki;vii;wI':us" ()I 

public LhroUKh Lyi'ital liallads. ( )|)i)()si(i()ii Id IIumm and 
tht'ir theories had hejjjun to he sliown ahiiosl immediately, 
alhisions to Southey, in partieukir, heuv}; fairly eomniou in 
satiric literature before iSo(). Mathias had said irouieally 
with reference to Soutlu\v's lirsl pocnu: 

" i cannot . . . 
(Jttil the (hill Cam, and ponder in llu> Park 
A six-weeks I'^pick, or a Joan of Arc,"' 

In [\\v Aiili-Jdcohiii Soulhey's poetry had been ludicrously 
l)aro(licd, and the nuMubers of the Lake School had been 
branded as r\>volutiouisls. h]pi<s of the Ton had ridiculed 
vSoutliey and Wordsworth," and llie Siin/>li< iod had accused 
all three of "childish prattlc>." ' iiyron, then, was no |)io- 
neer in his satire on the romanticists, nor did he eontribut,e 
anythiu).^ original to tin- controvci-sy. Tlie fi"e(|ueney ''"hI 
rapidity with which Southey had published lonj,^ epii"S had 
impressed others before Hyron cried in I'lHjJisli Bards: 

"Oh, Southey! Southey! cease thy varied souj;! 
A hard may ehaunt too often and too lonjj;."'' 

' PursiUls of LiLcraturc, iv., 397-39H. 

^"Then still mi(i;lit, SouUiey sing liis cmzy Jo.'in, 
'i'o feign ;i Welsliman o'er the Att-inlie down, 
Or toll of 'th;ilal);i the wondnius tnattcr, 
Or vvilli c'ldwii VVonlsworl.li, eliattcr, cliaLler, cluiller." 

{I'lpics of the Ton, 31-34.) 
^AfU^r seme praise of tlic liirce poets, the (ledicatioii ol: the Simpliciad 
closes wit! 1 the words: "I lament the degradation of yonr genins, and 
deprecate the propagation of your perverted taste." 

1 Pope, in the Dunciad, lia<l iKintered Sir Riehard iJlaekinore, author 
of epics, in the lines: — 

"AH hail him victor in both gifts of song, 
Who sings so loudly, and who sings so long." 

(Dunciad, ii., 267-268,) 



62 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

In this early satire Byron showed no personal animosity 
towards Southey; he introduced him merely as a too pro- 
lific and too eccentric scribbler y to be jeered at rather than 
hated. The fierce fend between the two men was of a later 
growth. 

Pickinj.:; Southey as the leader of the romanticists, Byron 
treats Wordsworth as merely a "dull disciple," silly in his 
choice of subjects and prosaic in his poetry, "the meanest 
object of the lowly grou])." Perhaps the most striking de- 
fect in the satire levelled at this poet is the lack of any 
recognition of his ability, an omission all the more notice- 
able because Byron, in the last two cantos of Cliilde Harold, 
was influenced so strongly by Wordsworth's conception of 
the relation between man and nature. Coleridge receives 
even less consideration. He is "the gentle Coleridge — to 
turgid ode and tumid stanza dear," and is ridiculed mainly 
because of his Lines to a Young Ass, a poem which had 
previously excited the mirth of the Simpliciad. ' The slash- 
ing manner in which the boy satirist disposes of his great 
contemporaries is almost unparalleled.^ 

Byron's satire on the Rev. Samuel Bowles (1762-1850) 
illustrates one phase of his veneration for Pope, and con- 
nects him with another Pope enthusiast, GifTord. In the 
Baviad Gifford had gone out of his way to confront and 
refute Weston, who, in an article in the Gentleman' s Maga- 
zine, had adduced evidence to prove that Pope's moral 
character was not above reproach. Giflord, unable to 

The possibility that Byron may have had this passage in mind is 
increased by his note to his lines in English Bards : "Must he [Southey] 
be content to rival Sir Richard Blackniore in the quantity as well as tlie 
quality of his verse? " 

^ Simpliiiad, 212-213. 

' It must be remembered, however, that practically every charge tliat 
Byron brings against the "Lakists" has a counterpart in Mant's 
Simpliciad, printed only a year before Byron's poem. 



"ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS" 63 

dispute the validity of the facts, had contented himself with 
describing the critic as "canker'd Weston," and terming 
him in a note "this nightman of literature."' Bowles, 
whose early sonnets (1789) had attracted the admiration 
of Coleridge, published in 1807 an edition of Pope's Works 
in ten volumes, in which he followed Weston in not sparing 
the infirmities and mendacities of the great Augustan. 
The effect of this work on Byron was like that of Weston's 
on Gifford, and the result was that Bowles was pilloried in 
English Bards as "the wretch who did for hate what Mallet. 
did for hire." Nor did the quarrel end here. It grew 
eventually into a heated controversy between Bowles and 
Byron, carried on while the latter was in Italy, in the course 
of which Byron was provoked into calling Pope "the great 
moral poet of all times, of all climes, of all feelings, and of 
all stages of existence."^ So strongly did he feel on the 
matter that he wrote, even as late as 1821, concerning 
English Bards: "The part which I regret the least is that 
which regards Mr. Bowles, with reference to Pope."^ 
Byron's exaltation of Pope was made a positive issue in the 
unreserved commendation which he gave to Campbell, 
Rogers, and Crabbe, all three of whom were, in most re- 
spects, firm in their allegiance to that master's principles of 
poetry. 

An odd freak of fancy led Byron to pose in English Bards 
as a watchful guardian of morality in literature, though 
even at that date he was the author of verses which are not 
altogether blameless. That he should upbraid Monk Lewis, 
Moore, and Strangford as "melodious advocates of lust" 
may well seem extraordinary to the reader who recalls the 
poem which Byron sent to Pigot, August 10, 1806, asking 
that it be printed separately as "improper for the perusal 
of ladies."'' The truth is that Byron was again treading in 

' Baviad, 248-261. » Letters, v, 590. 

3 Letters, v., 539. ^ Letters, i., 104. 



()4 1A)R1) UVRDN AS A SAIIRIST IN \ERSE 

the slojis of others. Tlic virUious hut somewhat prurient 
Mathias, exeited by Lewis's no\el Ambrosio, or the Monk 
(1705). whieh has j^iven the writer notoriety and a niek- 
nanie, had assailed the author in Pursuits of Literature,^ 
ami the supposed voluptuousness of the story had not es- 
eaped the notieeof [he A iiti-Jaeohin ixnd E/yies of tJie Ton. 
B\ron had thus more than one preeedetU (or his ironic 
referiMiee t(.) Ivcwis's "ehaste tieseriptions." Moore's 
F.fyistles, Odes, and other Poems (iSod") had been eensured 
\)y the I'ldintuinih Revieic in an artieU> whieh tlesiM'ihed 
Moore as "the most Ueentious of modern \-ersiliers." All 
the Talents had quest ioneii ^hH)re's morality, and El)ies of 
the Ton luul mentioned a writer who, 

"Like 'Pommy Moore has seratch'd the itehinj; throni;, 
And tiekled matrons with a spiey son?;." 

Byron had l>een a delighted reader of the Irish poet and 
had been inllueneed by him in the more sentimental verses 
of Hours of Idleness; nevertheless he repeated the iminita- 
tions of the other satirists in referring to him as 

" Little! young Catullus of his day. 
As sweet, but as immoral, as his lay." 

To Viseount Slrangford (17S0-1S55), of whose translation 
of Canioens he had formerl>' been very fond, Byron ollcred 
fldviee: 

"Be warm, but inire; be amorous, but be ehaste." 

In the same vein as this grave admonition are the remarks 
whieh the poet makes upon the Argyle Institution, founded 

' Matlnas had asserted tliat Moore "had neither serupled nor liluslied 
to depict, and to publisti to tlie world, tlie arts of systeniatie sediietion, 
and to tlirust upon tlie nation the most open and unqnalilied l>lasphemy 
GRainst the very eode and volume i>f our religion " (rursuits of Lttcraturf, 
Preface to Dialogue IV.). 



"KN(;[.rSll HARDS, AND S(C)T( II KI-IVH'-.WI'.KS" 65 

by Colonel Grevillc as a resort for j^anihliii}^ and daiicin^. 
Di}i;rcssin}^ for a while williout any loj.(ical reason, Hyron 
I)rocc('(ls to condemn social follies, es[)ecially those fostered 
by "l)lcst retreats of infamy and case." The passage 
includes some lines on round dancing, which anticipate 
Bryon's attack on that amusement in his later satire. The 
Waltz. 

(jifford's Md'viad, after making some final thrusts at the 
Delia Cruscans, had shifted its atta(;k to contemporary 
actors and dramatists. That satire upon them was justi- 
fied may be gathered from (lilTord's remark in his Preface: 
"I know not if the stage has been sf) low sinc<> th(; days of 
Gammer Gurton as at this hotn-."' Dining the I'lhccn 
years following the date of this statement it cannot be 
averred that circumstances made it any th{> less applicable 
to the theatrical situation in England, and Hyron, in 1800, 
in ridiculing the "motley sight" whi(;h met his eycis on the 
stage of his time, iiad f)erhaps even more justification than 
Gifford had liad in I794-'' 

(){ the dramatists whom GifTord had mentioned with dis- 
favor, only two, Frederick ReynoMs (i7H4-i«4i) and Miles 
Andrews (died rH[4), were selected for notice by Byron. 
What the Mccviad had calked "Reynolds' flippant trash" 
was still enjoying some vogue, and linyllsk Bards took occa- 
sion to speak of the author as "venting his 'dammes!' 
'poohs!' and 'zounds!'"' Miles Andrews, whose "WondcT- 
working jjoetry" had been laughed at in the; liaviad, was 
barely mentioned by Hyron as a writer who "may live in 

' Preface to McEviad, page 59, NoU;. 

' Sec the account of tfiis period in 'i'horn/fitce's Tragedy, cliupLcr x. 
3 Byron may have taicen a suf^jjestion from sfjrne fines of Children of 
Apollo: 

"But in his diction Reynolds grossly errs; 
P'or wlietfier the love hero smiles or mourns, 
'T is oil! an<J ah! and oli! hy turns." 



()() 



H)K1) IJVKDN AS \ SMIKIST IN VKKSK 



l>ri)loL;iU"s, lliou;;li his tlrainas dir." In i;cMioral (ho satire 
(Ml tlio slai;o in /w/,t^//.s7/ Hards ciMisists of uninloivslini; 
remarks on some medioere dramatisls. anion.i; them Theti- 
ilore IIooU (17SS 1S41). Andrew C^herry (ijOi-iSu). Jam(\s 
Kennev (i7«^o i>'^4o), 'I'honias v'^heridan (1775-1817). I.nm- 
ley Skel1ini;lon (i7()J-i85()\ an^I 'V. ]. Pihdin (,1771 1S41). 
It is a lair eontention thai this di.uression is the tlreariest 
portion ot" the poem. The inti-rpohiti'd linens on the Italian 
Opera, sent to l^aUas. I'el>ruar\- JJ, iSoo, aUcv an i'\enin,v; 
spc-nt at a perl"onnaiu-e. attaek that anuisenu-ni on the 
i;roimd t>t" its indeeenew Thex- are akin in spirit to simihir 
passaj^es in Ymmi;,' Tope,' C'hui'eliill.' and nramston.-* 

Tlie satin- on less-known poets is indiseriminale and not 
always diseernini;. ICrasnuis Darwin (17;%1 iSoj). who. in 
his HoUmic Cmnicit (i78c)-i)2). was a dei-aiK^it imitator ol" 
Pope, is i-(>nliMnptnonsly dismisseil as "a mii;hlN' master ot" 
unmeanini; rhsine." .AnothtM" onee pc^pnlai' l>aril, W'iUiam 
llayley U745 iS-?o). still rememliered as the friend and 
bioi;rapher ol" t\)wper. is Itianded with a stin_>;in_>; eoupiet : 

"His st\le in \ onth or ai;e is still the same, 
I'\)rc>\er t"eel>le and I'orex-er tame." 

The Pella (,'riisi'ans are passed i>\im- as already ernshed by 
(otTi>rd, and "sepnlehral ("Irahame." "hoarse i*'it/'j;erald," 
till' t'ottles from Uristol, Mam'iee. and the et^hbler points, 
ni.iekiMt anil Hloomlield. u^'t onl\' a iU'etini; siu'er. 11. |. 
l\\-e, the lanreate. onee a Initt o\ Malhias. is mentioned 
onl\' onee. 

Two eharaeteri/.ations, lunve\er. aie distinj^uished aboxe 
the others by their sim-iilar \irulenei\ The first was a 
vieions onslan.uht mi Lord (.\ulisle, the Iriend ot l-'iix. 
iUron's relative and >;nardian. wlni luul lu'en inelnded 



' SiUtrfu, iii., U)7. 
» Kosiiod, 7J3-7J8. 



-' Putumd, iv., 45-70. 
* I'ltf Man of Tasl(-. 



" 1';n(;i.isii makds, and score ii kiivU'Wioks" 07 

rimoii); llu- S('iiliiiiciit;il iliyinr.lcrs in 'l^ickcHV. IVrcdIli of 
Fashion. To him liis ward liad (k(li( alcd I'ixnis OtiyjiKtl 
and Transldlcd; but tlic peer's cirelcssnes;; ahoni, iiilio- 
ducinf^' fjyi'oii into tlic House of Lords had irritated tlie 
youi)}', poet, and he ehaiij'.ed vvliat had previously heeii a 
nattcriu}', notice in hlnyjisli Hards into a feroeion:; ar.s.ani t : 

"'rh(! i)uny schoolboy and his early lay 
Men pardon, if bis follies pass away; 
But who forji;ives the Senior's ceaseless vcm'sc, 
Whose hairs j^row hoary aM iiis rhymes jm'ow worse." 

The shar[)cst satire in the poem was inscrte<l merely to 
satisfy a personal KrudK^'- lb;wson Clarke (17H7 iH.^2), 
editor of The SatirisI, a monthly ma^'azinc, had made sport 
of Hours of Idleness in an issue for October, 1807, and had 
harshly reviewed Poems Original and I'ranslaled irr Aiij-nst, 
iHoH. Byron replied in a passa^'e full of violent invc^ctive, 
deseribinj^ C'l.'irke as 

"A would-be satirist., a hir-ed HudooM, 
A monthly ;;eribbler of some low Ivainpoon."' 

These lines Byron never repudiated; he appcndcid to them 
in 1H16 the note: " Ri}dit cnou);h : this was well deserv(;d 
and well laid on."' 

' ( )nc line ol Hyioii's attack, 

"lliinsc'if a liviii); lihcl on iii;iiil:iii(l," 

recall;'. Miirpliy's uddrcss t(j C'Iiuk liill, 

"Thy look 's a lihcl on tli<' Iniinan race." 

' In tlic Siouryr, a new vciitiiic ol ( larkcV, Ix-jmiii in iHio, that editor 
published another seurrilous attack (*n Byron, involvinj.; atuj the poet's 
mother. An aetion for libel which Hyron intended to brinfj wan for 
some reason al)andoned, th()Uj^li not with(nit some caustic wrjrd.s from 
him about "the cowardly calumniator of an absent man and a defence- 
less woman" (Ltltcn, i., 324). 



68 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

English Bards closes with a defiance and a challenge. 
The poet, then only twenty-one, repeating that his only 
motive has been "to sternly speak the truth," dares his 
opponents to meet him in the open and declares his willing- 
ness to engage them. There is something amusing in the 
pompous way in which Byron, throwing down the gauntlet, 
boasts of his own indifference and callousness to criticism. 
He had, however, achieved at least one of his two objects: 
he had answered hostile reviewers in a manner which made 
it plain that he would not submit unresistingly to super- 
cilious comment on his work. Assuredly he had turned the 
weapons of his critics against themselves. 

Nothing was more natural than that Byron, his wrath 
for the most part evaporated, should regret his bitterness 
in cases where his hasty judgment had carried him too far. 
On his way home from Greece he wrote Dallas: "At this 
period when I can think and act coolly, I regret that I have 
written it."^ The story of the events leading to the sup- 
pression of the fifth and last edition may be given in the 
words of Byron to Leigh Hunt, October 22, 1 8 15: "I was 
correcting the fifth edition of E. B. for the press, when 
Rogers represented to me that he knew Lord and Lady 
Holland would not be sorry if I suppressed any further 
publication of that poem; and I immediately acquiesced, 
and with great pleasure, for I had attacked them upon a 
fancied and false provocation, with many others; and nei- 
ther was, nor am, sorry to have done what I could to stifle 
that furious rhapsody."^ The result was that the whole 
impression of this edition was burned, only a few copies 
being rescued, and when, in 18 16, Byron left England 
forever, he signed a Power of Attorney forbidding republi- 
cation in any form.^ His mature opinion of the work is 

' Letters, i., 314. See also Letters, ii., 312; iii., 192. 

2 Letters, ii., 326. ^ Letters, v., 539. 



"ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS" 69 

expressed in a comment written at Diodati in 1816: "The 
greater part of this Satire I most sincerely wish had never 
been written — not only on account of the injustice of some 
of the critical and some of the personal part of it — but the 
tone and temper are such as I cannot approve." 

It now remains to compare English Bards with other 
examples of English classical satire, if one may apply that 
title to poems which use the heroic couplet and follow the 
methods employed by Pope. Byron's versification in his 
early satires shows the effect of a careful study of Pope. 
It is singularly free from double rhymes, there being but 
five instances of them in English Bards. ^ Byron was some- 
what more sparing than Pope in his use of the run-on line. 
Adopting as a basis of judgment the conclusion of Mr. Gosse 
that ' ' with occasional exceptions, the presence or want of a 
mark of punctuation may be made the determining ele- 
ment," we find that, of the 1070 lines in English Bards, 
approximately loi are of the run-on variety, that is, about 
ten out of every hundred. In Mr. Gosse's collation of 
typical passages from other poets, he estimates that Dryden 
has II, Pope 4, and Keats 40 run-on lines out of every 
hundred. In the whole length of Byron's poem there is but 
one run-on couplet; in a hundred consecutive lines selected 
by Mr. Gosse, Dryden has one such example and Pope none. 
Twice Byron employs the triplet,^ and he has two alexan- 
drines. ^ The medial caesura after the 4th, 5th, or 6th foot 
of the line occurs with great regularity as it does in Pope's 
work. There are a few minor peculiarities in rhyming, "^ 
but in general the rhymes are pure. In summarizing, it is 
safe to say that Byron adhered closely to the metrical 
principles established by Pope. Not until Hunt, Keats, 
and Shelley introduced the looser and less monotonous 

^English Bards, 209-210; 231-232; 239-240; 253-254; 909-910. 
^ lUd., 415-417; 684-686. 3 Ihid., 417, 1022. 

^ Ibid., 608-609; 624-625; 656-657. 



70 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN V^ERSE 

system of versification used in Rimini, Endymion, and 
Epipsychidion, was the heroic couplet freed from the 
shackles with which Pope had bound it. 

Bj'Ton's candid acknowledgment that, in English Bards, 
he was venturing "o'er the path which Pope and Gifford 
trod before" suggests at once a comparison of his work with 
that of the two earlier authors. Although the Dunciad 
and English Bards are alike in that they are in the same 
metre and actuated by much the same motive, there are 
many differences in execution between the poems. The 
Dunciad is, as the Preface of " Martinus Scriblerus" states, 
a true mock-heroic, with a fal3le "one and entire" dealing 
with the Empire and the Goddess of Dulness, with ma- 
chinery setting forth a "continued chain of allegories," and 
with a succcsvsion of incidents and episodes imitated from 
epic writers. English Bards, beginning as a paraphrase of 
Juvenal, has no real action and is composed of a series of 
descriptions and characterizations, joined by some neces- 
sary connective material. Pope's method of satire is fre- 
quently indirect : he involves his victims in the plot, making 
them ridiculous through the situations in which he places 
them. Instead of inveighing against Blackmore, Pope 
pictures him as victor in a braying contest. Byron, on the 
other hand, uses this method only once in English Bards — 
in burlesquing the duel between Jeffrey and Moore. In- 
stinctively he prefers taking up his adversaries one by one 
and covering each with abuse. The Dunciad, with rare 
exceptions, assails only personal enemies of the satirist, 
and these, for the most part, men already despised and 
defenceless; BjTon attacks many prominent writers of 
whom he knows nothing except their work, and against 
whom he has no grievance of a private nature. Thus in 
plan and operation the two satires present some striking 
divergences. 

So far as matters of detail are concerned. English Bards is 



"ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH REVIEWERS" 7I 

not always in the manner of the Dunciad and the other 
satires of Pope. It has been observed of Dryden, and 
occasionally of Pope, that at its best their satire, however 
much it may be aimed at particular persons, tends to 
become universal in its application, just as had been the 
case with the finest work of the Latin satirists. Horace's 
Bore, for instance, was doubtless once a definite Roman 
citizen; Dryden's Buckingham has a place in history: but 
the satire on them is pointed and effective when applied 
to their counterparts in the twentieth century. The same 
is true of Pope's Atticus, who is described in language which 
is both specific and general, fitted both to Addison and to a 
definite type of humanity. The faculty of thus creating 
types was not part of Byron's art. For one thing, he seldom, 
except in some of his earliest satires, employs type names, 
and he carefully prints in full, without asterisks or blank 
spaces, the names of those whom he attacks. His accusa- 
tions are too precise to admit of transference to others, and 
his epithets, even when they are unsatisfactory, cannot be 
dissevered from the one to whom they apply. The satire 
on Wordsworth, illustrated as it is by quotations and by 
references to that author's poetry, is appropriate to him 
alone, and would have soon been forgotten had it not been 
for the eminence of the victim. It is otherwise with Pope's 
description of Sporus, which is often applied to others, 
even when it is forgotten that the original Sporus was Lord 
Hervey. 

In many respects Byron had more in common with 
Giflford than with Pope. It is Gifford to whom, in English 
Bards, he refers so often as a master; it is he whom he 
mentions in 1811 as his "Magnus Apollo"^; and it was of 
the Baviad and the McBviad that he was thinking when he 
conceived his plan of hunting down the "clamorous brood 
of Folly." 

' Letters, ii., 27. 



12 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

Pope, preserving in his satire a calm deliberation which 
enabled him both to conceal and to concentrate his inward 
wrath, was capable, even when most in a rage, of a sustained 
analysis of those whom he hated, and seldom let his temper 
sweep him off his feet. Gifford and Byron prefer a more 
slashing and a less reserved method. Dallas once said of 
Byron: "His feelings rather than his judgment guided his 
pen."^ The same idea was also expressed by the poet 
himself: — "Almost all I have written has been mere 
passion."^ These two statements, confirming each other, 
explain the lack of poise and the want of a sense of propor- 
tion which are apparent in English Bards, as they were 
apparent in the Baviad. Unlike Dryden, neither Gifford 
nor Pope allows his victims any merit ; each paints entirely 
in sombre colors, without ever perfecting a finished sketch 
or alleviating the black picture with the admission of a 
single virtue. Their conclusions, naturally, are unpleas- 
antly dogmatic, founded as they are on prejudice and 
seldom subjected to reason. Most satire is, of course, 
biassed and unjust, but the careful craftsman takes good 
care that his charges shall have a semblance of plausibility 
and shall not defeat their purpose by arousing in reaction a 
sympathy for the defendant. •^ Satire written in a rage is 
likely to be mere invective, and invective, even when 
embodied in artistic form, is usually less effective than 
deliberate irony. Byron in his later satire learned better 
than to portray an enemy as all fool or all knave. 

Gifford was, as he sedulously protested, fighting for a 
principle, aiming at the extermination of certain forms of 
affectation and false taste in poetry. There is no ground 
for suspecting his sincerity, any more than there is for 
questioning Byron's motive in his effort to defend the 
classical standards against the encroachments of roman- 

' Recollections of Lord Byron, page 31. * Letters, iv., 488. 

•» See Pope and the Art of Satire, by G. K. Chesterton. 



"ENGLISH BARDS, AND SCOTCH reviewers" 73 

ticism. It so happened that Gifford was performing a 
genuine service to letters, while Byron engaged himself in a 
struggle at once unnecessary and hopeless. In their zeal 
and enthusiasm, however, both satirists lost a feeling for 
values. Gifford delivered sledge-hammer blows at butter- 
flies; Byron classed together, without discernment, the 
work of mediocrity and genius, and heaped abuse indis- 
criminately upon poetaster and poet. 

GifTord's method, like Byron's, was descriptive and direct, 
and his satires have little action. The Baviad, with its 
dialogue framework, is not unlike some of Pope's Epistles, 
while the Mceviad is more akin to English Bards. Byron, 
following Mathias and Gififord, employed prose notes to 
reinforce his verse, but he never, like Gififord, padded them 
with quotations from the men whom he was attacking. In 
both the Mceviad and English Bards names are printed in 
full. Giflord used no type names, nor did he succeed in 
creating a type. In style and diction Byron is GifiEord's 
superior. The latter was often vulgar and inelegant, and 
his ear for rhythm and melody was poor. Byron's instinc- 
tive good taste kept him from blotting his pages with the 
language of the streets. His study of Pope, moreover, had 
enabled him to acquire something of the smoothness as 
well as of the vigor of that master. 

It may be said in general of English Bards that it owes 
most in versification to Pope, and most in manner and 
structure to Giflord. There are, however, other satirists 
to whom Byron may have been slightly indebted. At the 
time when he was preparing British Bards, Francis Hodgson 
(1781-1852), his close friend, irritated by some severe crit- 
icism in the Edinburgh Review on his translation of Juvenal 
(1807), was planning his Gentle Alterative prepared for the 
Reviewers, which appeared in Lady Jane Grey; and other 
Poems (1809). The fact that the provocation was the same 
as for English Bards and that the two authors were acquain- 



74 LORD UVUON AS A SATIRIST IN V^ERSE 

tanccs offers a curious case of parallelism in literature. It 
is certain, however, that Byron's satire, which is much 
lonj^er tlian the Gentle Alterative, is indebted to it only in 
minor respects, if at all. Both satires mention the ludicrous 
mistake of an /'jlinbiir;jili Revie7v article in attrilnitini; to 
Payne Knij;lit some Clreek i)assai^es really quoted from 
Pindar; hut this error had l)een discussed in a lonsj; note to 
All the Talents, and was a favorite literary joke of the period. 
Bolii poets, too, call uiH)n the master, Gifford, to do his 
part in casti.q;atinj;' the age. Beyond these superficial 
similarities, it may safely be asserted that Byron borrowed 
nt)thini; from Hodii^son. 

It is curious that the strikinj.;; simile of the eagle shot l)y 
an arrow winged with a feather from his own plume used by 
Moore in Corruption ' slioukl ha\e l)een employed by Byron^ 
in speaking of the tragic death t)f Henry Kirke White 
(1785 i<S()5), the religious poet and protege of SouthcN'. 
The simile, whii-Ii has been traced to Fratiment IJJ of 
.^scliN'lus, occurs also in Waller's 7^o a Lady Sini^inti a Sonii 
of Ilis Own Coniposini^. It is somewhat remarkable that 
two jioets in two successive years shouhl ha\-e happened 
upon the same (igure, each working it out so elaborately. 
Asiile from this one parallelism, Moore's early satires, 
almost entirely political, would seem to have had no definite 
inlluence upon Eniilish Bards. 

It has been shown, then, that B\ix)n's ideas in his satire 
were not always entirely his own, and that he reflected, 
in many cases, the views and sometimes the phraseology 
of other satirists, notably Pope, Churchill, and Gill'ord. 
En'Jisli Hards belongs to the school of English classical 
satire, and, as such, has the iieculiarities and the established 
features connnon to the dill'erent t\pes of that i^enre. In 
the preface to the second edition of his poem, Byron said: 
"i can safely say that I have attacked none personally, who 

' Corruplion, 93-98. •■ English Bards, 841-848. 



"ENGLISH HARDS, AND SCOTCH RIC VIKWliKS " 75 

did not commence on the offensive."' To accept this 
literally would he to misinterpret Byron's whole theory of 
satire. Whether he admitted it or not he was a great per- 
sonal satirist— in English Bards, primarily a personal 
satirist. Looking hack at the time when his wrath was 
fiercest, he said: "Like Lshmael, my hand was against all 
men, and all men's against me."^ Even when satirising 
a principle or a movement, he was invariably led to attack 
the individuals who rei)rcsented it. wSwift's satiric code: 

" Malice never was his aim; 
He lash'd the vice, but spar'd the name; 
No individual could resent, 
Where thousands equally were meant," 

was exactly contrary to Byron's practice. He sought 
always to contend with persons, to decide questions, not by 
argument, hut by a hand-to-hand grapple. 

The peculiar features of Eni^Iis/i Bards are to be explained 
by the author's character. He did not let his reason rule. 
From notes and letters we learn that he was often in doubt 
whether to prai.se or censure certain minor figures: it was 
on the spur of the moment that he changed "coxcomb Gell" 
to "classic Gell." He was courageous and aggressive, but 
he was also unfair and illogical. There is little real humor 
in English Bards, so little that one is inclined to wonder 
where Jeaffreson discovered the "irresistibly comic verse" 
of which he speaks. When the satirist tries to be playful, 
the result is usually brutality. He has not yet acquired 
the conversational railling mood which he utilized so 
admirably in Beppo. 

In spite of its crudities, its lack of restraint, and its 
manifest prejudices, English Bards shows many signs of 
power. In the light of the greater satire of Don Juan, it 

' Podry, i., 291. 2 Letters, ii., 330. 



76 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

seems immature and inartistic, but it surpasses any work of 
a similar kind since the death of Pope. It is Byron's 
masterpiece in classical satire. To excel it he had to turn 
for inspiration to another quarter, and to change both his 
method and his style. 



CHAPTER V 



" . »rT^ << 



HINTS FROM HORACE AND THE CURSE OF MINERVA 

On July 2, 1809, Byron, accompanied by his friend, 
John Cam Hobhouse, sailed from Falmouth for Lisbon on 
a trip that was to take him to Spain, Malta, Greece, and 
Turkey. When he returned to England in July, 181 1, 
after two years of travel and adventure, he brought with 
him "4000 lines of one kind or another," including the 
first two cantos of Childe Harold and two satires. Hints from 
Horace and The Curse of Minerva. Hints from Horace, 
written in March, 181 1, during the poet's second visit to 
Athens, is dated March 14, 18 11, on the last page of the 
most authentic manuscript. It was composed at the 
Capuchin Convent in Athens, where he had met acciden- 
tally with a copy of Horace's epistle Ad Pisones, De Arte 
Poetica, commonly known as the Ars Poetica. 

The history of the fortunes of this work is perhaps worth 
relating. Byron, on his arrival, handed it over at once to 
Dallas, without giving him a hint of Childe Harold; indeed, 
only the latter's obvious disappointment induced the poet 
to show him the Pilgrimage, which then seemed of little 
importance to its author. On September 4, 181 1, Byron 
requested Dallas to aid him in correcting the proofs of Hints 
from Horace, and "in adapting the parallel passages of the 
imitation in such places to the original as may enable the 
reader not to lose sight of the allusion." ' There is, however, 
no reason for thinking that Dallas actually undertook the. 

' Letters, ii., 24. 

77 



7^ LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

task, for on October 13th Byron complained to Hodgson that 
the labor of editing was still hanging fire, and begged the 
latter to assist him. Shortly after, owing partly to the 
adverse criticism of Dallas, and partly to Murray's wish not 
to endanger the success of Childe Harold, the idea of imme- 
diate publication was put aside for some years. In 1820, 
Byron, then resident in Italy, was reminded of his unprinted 
satire, and wrote Murray to inform him that the manu- 
script had been left, among various papers, with Hobhouse's 
father in England.' At intervals he expressed anxiety 
about the proofs, which Murray, exercising his discretion, 
delayed sending. From this revived project Byron was, 
for a time, dissuaded by the wise counsel of Hobhouse, who 
suggested that the poem would require much revision. 
Nevertheless on January 11, 1 821, he informed Murray that 
he saw little to alter, ^ and accused him of having neglected 
to comply with his orders. A postscript to a letter of 
February 16, 1821, indicates that he was contemplating 
printing the Hints with its Latin original. ^ After March 
4, 1822, there is no further allusion to the satire in his cor- 
respondence, and the question of printing it seems to have 
been forgotten. Although a few selections, amounting to 
156 lines, were inserted in Dallas's Recollections (1824), the 
poem did not appear complete until the Works were pub- 
lished by Murray in 1831. 

Hints from Horace, through a curious perversity of judg- 
ment, was always a great favorite with Byron, and was 
estimated by him as one of his finest performances. His 
mature opinion of it and a possible cause for his preference 
are given in a letter to Murray, March i, 1821 : "Pray re- 
quest Mr. Hobhouse to adjust the Latin to the English : the 
imitation is so close that I am unwilling to deprive it of its 
principal merit — its closeness. I look upon it and my Pulci 

' Zf //«'«, i v., 425. ^ Letters, v., 221. ^ Letters, v., 245. 



HINTS FROM HORACE AND THE CURSE OF MINERVA 79 

as by far the best things of my doing." ^ On September 23, 
1820, when he had published portions of his masterpiece, Dow 
Juan, he said, referring to the period ot Hints from Horace: 
"1 wrote better then than now."^ No intelligent reader 
will be likely to agree with Byron's preposterous verdict on 
his own work, for Hints from Horace, although designed as 
a sequel to English Bards, is so much less vigorous and bril- 
liant that it suffers decidedly by a comparison with the 
earlier satire. The poet, far from the scenes and associa- 
tions where his rage had been aroused, has lost the angry 
inspiration which raised English Bards above mere ranting, 
and the white heat of his passion has cooled with the flight 
of time. The praise which Byron bestowed upon his poem 
is additional testimony to the often repeated assertion that 
authors are incompetent critics of their own productions. 

Byron's boastful claim for the accuracy of Hints from 
Horace as a version of the Ars Poetica may possibly lead 
to some misconceptions. Professor A. S. Cook, in his Art 
of Poetry, has pointed out some particular passages in which 
the English poet imitated his model, and has proved that he 
followed Horace, in places, with reasonable closeness. But 
Hints from Horace is far from being, like Byron's version 
of the first canto of Pulci's Morgante Maggiore, a mere trans- 
lation. It must be remembered that Byron, in his secon- 
dary title, defined the Hints in three different ways in as 
many manuscripts, as "an Allusion," as an "Imitation," 
and as a "Partial Imitation." The fact seems to be that 
the work conforms, in general, to the structure and argu- 
ment of the Ars Poetica, in many cases translating literally 
the phrasing of the original, but altering and reorganizing 
the satire to fit current conditions. 

The idea of thus preserving the continuity of Horace's 
poem, while revising and readapting its text, was probably 
first conceived by Oldham in his English version of the A rs 

' Letters, v., 255. ^Letters, v., 77. 



8o LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

Poetica. In his preface Oldham stated his design as fol- 
lows : "I resolved to alter the scene from Rome to London, 
and to make Use of English Names of Men, Places, and 
Customs, where the Parallel would decently permit, which 
I conceived would give a kind of New Air to the Poem, and 
render it more agreeable to the Relish of the Present Age." 
Accordingly, while keeping roughl}^ to the text of Horace, 
he introduced plentiful references to English poets. Byron 
also gives his satire a modern setting, but in so doing, takes 
more liberties than Oldham. He substitutes Milton for 
Homer as the classic example of the epic poet; he makes 
Shakspere instead of .^schylus the standard writer of 
drama. He inserts many passages, such as the remarks on 
the Italian Opera, on Methodism, and on the versification 
of Hiidihras, which have no counterparts in the Ars Poetica. 
Oldham had refrained from satirising his contemporaries; 
Byron improves every opportunity for assailing his old 
antagonists. Allusions to "Granta" and her Gothic Halls, 
to "Cam's stream," to Grub-street, and to Parliament 
make Hints from Horace a thoroughly modem poem. We 
may apply to it Warburton's comment on Pope's Imitatiovs: 
"Whoever expects a paraphrase of Horace, or a faithful 
copy of his genius, or manner of writing . . . will be much 
disappointed." Byron restates, without much alteration, 
the critical dicta which Horace had established as applicable 
to poetry in all times and countries ; he takes the plan of the 
Ars Poetica as a rough guide for his English adaptation; 
but he introduces so many digressions and changes so many 
names that his satire is firmly stamped with his own 
individuality. 

There is no ground for supposing that any one of the 
scores of translations and imitations of the Ars Poetica had 
ever met Byron's eye^; the nearest prototypes in English 

' There have been many actual translations of the Ars Poetica into 
English. T. Drant published, in 1567, the first complete version. 



"hints from HORACE" AND " THE CURSE OF MINERVA " 8l 

poetry of Hints from Horace arc probably Pope's Essay 
on Criticism and Epistle to Augustus. Certain superficial 
resemblances have led critics to the inference that Pope's 
Essay is accountable for much of Byron's Hints. It is 
remarkable that the two authors, born just a century apart, 
should have attempted satires so similar in tone at ages 
approximately the same. Pope's Essay on Criticism, com- 
posed probably in 1709, was printed in 1711, a hundred 
years before Byron wrote Hints from Horace. In this 
work Pope tried to do for criticism what Horace had done 
for poetry: that is, to codify and express in compact form 
some generally accepted principles of the art. Pope, how- 
ever, saw fit to introduce incidentally some conventional 
precepts concerning the subject-matter of literary criticism, 
borrowing them from Horace, and Horace's French imitator, 
Boileau. Thus in Pope's Essay are to be found many of 
the maxims which Byron transferred into Hints from Horace 
from the Latin source. The correspondence between such 
passages in the Essay and their counterparts in Hints from 
Horace has led Weiser to conclude, from a study of parallel 
ideas, that Byron's poem is based, to a large extent, on 
Pope's work.' His thesis, however, has been all but con- 
clusively refuted by Levy, who shows that in the nine 
instances of parallelism adduced by Weiser as evidence, the 

Queen Elizabeth left a fragmentary version of 194 lines in her English- 
ings (1598). Ben Jonson's excellent Horace, of the Art of Poetry was 
printed after his death. Of other translations, from that of Roscommon 
(1680) in blank verse, to that of Howes (1809) in heroic couplets, it is 
unnecessary to speak, except to say that they mount into the hundreds. 
In such works as The Art of Preaching by Christopher Pitt (1699-1748) 
and The An of Politicks (1731) by James Bramston (1694-1744) the title 
and method of Horace had been transferred to other fields. Harlequin- 
Horace; or the Art of Modern Poetry by James Miller (1706-1744) is an 
ironical parody of the Ars Poetica. 

' See his treatise, Ueber das Verhaltnis von Byrons Hints from Horace zu 
Horaz und Pope. 



82 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

lines quoted from Hints from Horace are really much closer 
to lines from the A rs Poetica than they are to the citations 
from the Essay on Criticism. ' Undoubtedly there are coup- 
lets in the Hints that recall the Essay; but in view of Byron's 
specific statement of his obligation to Horace, it would be 
rash to assume that Pope's influence was more than a 
general one, the natural result of Byron's careful study of 
his style and manner. Pope's Epistle to Augustus, a para- 
phrase of Horace's Book II, Epistle i, is, in several respects, 
not unlike Hints from Horace. It pursues the same method 
in substituting English names for Greek and Roman ones, 
and in replacing classical references by allusions to contem- 
porary life. Moreover the Epistle, with its judgment on 
English writers, its criticism of the drama, and its estimate 
of the age, is structurally more akin to Hints from Horace 
than is ordinarily supposed. 

It would be superfluous to attempt to add anything to 
Professor Cook's work in outlining the instances in which 
Byron merely translated Horace. A single illustration 
will suffice to show how the same Latin lines were treated by 
Pope, and, later, by Byron. Horace's counsel : — 

"Vos exemplaria Grseca 
Noctuma versate manu, versate diuma"^ 

is paraphrased roughly in the Essay on Criticism as, 

"Be Homer's works your study and delight. 
Read them by day and meditate by night. "^ 

In this case Byron's version, 

"Ye who seek finished models, never cease 
By day and night to read the works of Greece,"^ 

is slightly more literal. 

' See his article in Anglia, ii., 256. ^ Ars Poetica, 269-270. 

3 Essay on Criticism, 124-125. ^ Hints from Horace, 423-424, 



"hints from HORACE" AND "THE CURSE OF MINERVA " 83 

Horace's treatise, technically an epistle, suffers from a 
want of coherence. In plan it is merely a group of maxims, 
with illustrations and amplifications. Hints from Horace 
is even more muddled and formless. It is like a collection 
of detached thoughts in verse, with each single observation 
jotted down almost at haphazard without regard to what 
comes before or after. It is no exaggeration to say that 
whole sections of the satire might be lifted bodily from one 
page to another without perceptibly affecting the continu- 
ity of thought. This defect, obscured in Horace and Pope 
by the epigrammatic brilliancy of separate phrases and the 
lift of "winged words," has, in Byron's poem, few counter- 
balancing virtues. Hints from Horace lacks the finished 
perfection of style which distinguishes the Ars Poetica and 
the Epistle to Augustus. Its versification is, except in iso- 
lated lines, feeble and careless, far inferior to that of English 
Bards, and even sinking at times, as in the passage on Hudi- 
bras,^ into bare prosing. One finds in the poem con- 
firmation of Byron's confession to Lord Holland in 1812: 
— "Latterly, I can weave a nine-line stanza faster than a 
couplet, for which measure I have not the cunning."^ 
If the dates furnished by the poet are correct, 722 lines, at 
least, of the satire must have been composed in two weeks, 
a speed which may explain some of the defects in execution. 
Certainly, even with due allowance for Byron's strange 
fondness, it must be considered one of his poorest works 
in structure, diction, and versification. 

Nor can it, vievv^ed merely as a medium for satire, claim a 
high rank. It is too obviously didactic in its purpose and 
too general in its attacks. It does not even possess the 
special interest which attaches to English Bards because 
of the references to contemporary and famous writers in 
the latter work. Only a few lines are devoted to personal 
satire, and these seldom do more than repeat or amplif}' the 

' Hints from Horace, 399-412. ^Letters, ii., 150. 



84 LORD nVKON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

criticism embodied in the earlier poem. The result is that 
Hints from Horace, taken as a satire only, is open to a charj;e 
of futility, in that its motive is not definite and its satire is 
too scattered. It cannot j^o straight to the mark, because 
it is aiming at no particular tar}i;et. 

As in Eniilisli Bards, a larj^e pro|)ortion of the satire is 
placed in prose notes. The lon.tiicst passage of satire in 
verse is that directed at JcfTre\'. The lines: — 

"On slu)res of luixine or i^.!;ean sea. 
My hale, imlra\'clled, fomliy turned to thee," 

show that Huron's rai;e at that critic was still smouklerinj;. 
Rei)eatini;- the bombastic challenj^e uttered in the post- 
script to the second edition of English Bards, the satirist 
taunts JclIrcN' with tlisinclination or inability to reply to 
the assault made upon him. It is probable that the Scotch- 
man ntAHT saw this passa<,'e in Hints from Horace; at any 
rate he did not deij;n to answer B\rt>n's abuse, and main- 
tained a discreet silence durint; the jxMMod of the hitter's 
ani;er. 

The lines on Soutliey reiterate in a conunt)nplace fashion 
what Byron had said before on the same subject, a long 
prose note dwelling on the heaviness of Southey's epics, 
particularly of The Curse of Keliania (1810), which had 
recently appeared. Another elaborate note is aimed at 
the "cobbler-laureates," Bloomtield and Blackett, w^hom 
Byron still mentions with contempt. Scott and Bow^les 
receive some passing uncomplimentary remarks; Fitzgerald 
is referred to once as "Fitz-scribble"; Wordsworth is 
barely alluded to, and Coleridge is not spoken of at all. 
The review of the drama is uninteresting and dull. Bynin 
persists in his condemnation of the Opera on the ground of its 
immorality, although, somewhat inconsistently, he defends 
plays against the prudish censure of "Methodistic men." 



"hints from HORACE" AND "tHE CURSE OF MINERVA " 85 

An occasional line suggests a similar passage from other 
English satirists. Thus Byron's couplet, 

"Satiric rhyme first sprang from selfish spleen. 
You doubt — see Dryden, Pope, St. Patrick's Dean," 

recalls the words of Cowper, 

"But (I might instance in St. Patrick's Dean) 
Too often rails to gratify his spleen."^ 

The reference to Pitt's skill in coining words may have been 
remembered from many jests on the subject in the Rolliad 
and the Works of Peter Pindar. The scorn of "French flip- 
pancy and German sentiment" re-echoes the violent oppo- 
sition of the Anti-Jacobin to the spread of foreign ideas. A 
note on "the millennium of the black letter"'' calls to mind 
the hatred of Mathias for antiquaries and searchers for old 
manuscripts •* and another note'* reinforces Giflford in abus- 
ing T. Vaughan, Esq., the "last of the Cruscanti." 

The single striking feature of Hints from Horace is its 
summary of "Life's little tale," based upon a corresponding 
passage in the ^^5 Poetica, in which Byron describes graphi- 
cally the career of a young nobleman under the Georges, 
from his "simple childhood's dawning days" to the time 
when "Age palsies every limb," and he sinks into his grave 
"crazed, querulous, forsaken, half-forgot." Despite some 
obvious exaggerations and some traces of affected pessimism, 
the poet was undoubtedly drawing largely upon his own 
experience. The tone of the lines is bitter, unrelieved by 
sympathy or humor, paralleled in Byron's work only in the 
Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog. 

The Curse of Minerva, composed at approximately the 
same time as Hints from Horace, — it is dated from the Capu- 

' Charity, 420-500. ^ Poetry, i., 396. 

3 Pursuits of Literature, page 93. * Poetry, i., 444. 



86 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

chin Convent at Athens, March 17, 181 1 — was actually 
printed in 18 12, but not for public circulation. The first 
edition, probably unauthorized, was brought out in Phila- 
delphia in 18 15. Meanwhile the 54 introductory lines, 
beginning : — 

"Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run, 
Along Morea's hills the setting sun," 

had appeared in Canto III of the Corsair (1814). A frag- 
mentary version of iii lines, entitled The Malediction of 
Minerva, or the Athenian Marble-Market, signed "Steropes" 
and published in the New Monthly Magazine for April, 18 15, 
was disowned by Byron as a "miserable and villanous 
copy."' The stanzas on Lord Elgin in Childe Harold- had 
already expressed Byron's condemnation of the conduct of 
that nobleman, and the poet doubtless believed that nothing 
was to be gained by again airing his indignation. Possibly, 
too, as Moore suggests, ^ a remonstrance from Lord Elgin or 
some of his relatives may have been an inducement to sacri- 
fice a work which could add little to his reputation. 

The Curse, unlike Hints from Horace, has the adv^antage 
of a definite and undivided aim. It is an exposure and 
denunciation of Lord Elgin, who, appointed in 1799 to the 
embassy from England at the Porte, had interested himself 
in the remains of Greek architecture and sculpture on the 
Acropolis and had secured the services of the Neapolitan 
painter, Lusieri, to sketch the ruins. In 1801 he obtained 
a fimian from the Sultan allowing him to carry away "any 
pieces of stone with old inscriptions or figures thereon," 
and accepting this as a guaranty against molestation in his 
project, he at once i^roceeded, at his own expense, to dis- 
mantle the Parthenon and to shij) the finest specimens to 

' Letters, iii., 271. ^ Childe Harold, II., 10-15. 

^ Life of Byro7i, ii., 145. 



"hints from HORACE" AND " THE CURSE OF MINERVA " 87 

England. Although he left Turkey in 1803, the work con- 
tinued through his agents until 18 12. His collection, the 
cost of accumulating which was estimated at 74,000 pounds, 
was purchased by the nation for 35,000 pounds in 18 16, and 
now forms part of the so-called "Elgin Marbles" in the 
British Museum. 

Although opinions as to the propriety of Elgin's actions 
differed widely at the time, it is now fairly well established 
that his foresight prevented the ultimate destruction of the 
statuary by war and the elements. Byron's conclusions, 
formed on the spot where the operations were being carried 
on, have, however, some justification. He felt that it was 
the degradation of Greece at the hands of a foreign despoiler, 
and he resented the intrusion as interference in the aflEairs 
of a helpless people. In English Bards he had mentioned 
Elgin, along with Aberdeen, as fond of "misshaped monu- 
ments and maimed antiques," and had ridiculed him for 
making his house a mart, 

"For all the mutilated works of art." 

When later he saw the havoc that had been caused at Athens, 
his mood changed from raillery to seriousness, and he burst 
out with fury at the man whom he considered a wanton 
plunderer and at the nation which could tolerate his depre- 
dations. Under this stimulus he wrote the stanzas on 
Elgin in Childe Harold, but his rage found a better outlet 
in The Curse of Minerva. This satire contains only 312 
lines, but it goes straight to its goal, with a directness and 
a concentration which distinguish it above any of the other 
early satires, even above English Bards, superior as that 
poem is to it in more important respects. 

The satire has a narrative basis, with a plot which is 
simple and unified. The beautiful opening description of 
an evening at Athens precedes, and accentuates by contrast, 



88 LORD HYKON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

the ensuing indictment by Minerva of Elgin, the desecrator 
of all this loveliness. The poet's reply to the accusing god- 
dess disclaims any responsibility for the vandalism on 
England's part, and lays the blame on Scotland, Elgin's 
fatherland. Minerva's answering curse and prophecy 
extend the scope of the satire beyond mere personal malice, 
and give it a l)road application to England's policy as 
oppressor and devastator. Her speech ends somewhat 
abruptly, and the poem closes. 

Although Byron was, by his own admission, "half a Scot 
by birth, and bred a whole one,"' he joined, in The Curse of 
Minerva, the long line of satirists from the authors of 
Eastward IIoI to Cleveland with his grim couplet, 

"Had Cain l)een Scot, God would have changed his doom; 
Not forced liim wander but confined him home," 

and to Dr. Johnson, who have jeered at the Scotcli and 
Scotland. Byron's antipathy for his early home evidently 
developed from his quarrel with the Scotch reviewers. 
English Bards had contained scattered references to " North- 
ern wolves" and to the "oat-fed i)halanx" of the critic clan, 
and had alluded scornfully to the children of Dun-edin 
who "write for food — and feed because they write." In 
The Curse of Minerva, a new occasion for dislike having 
arisen, the attack on the Scotch is more vicious and intol- 
erant. Many passages have their counterparts in portions 
of Churchill's Prophecy of Famine (1763), a pastoral in the 
fomi of a dialogue, with the motto, " Nos patriam fugimus, " 
ingeniously applied to the Scotch in the translation," We all 
get out of our coimtry as fast as we can." Churchill, who, 
it will be remembered, hated the Scotch critic, Smollett, as 
ferociously as Byron hated Jeffrey, had been aroused also 
by the growing influence of Bute and other Scotchmen at 

» Don Juan, x. , 17. 



"hints from HORACE" AND " THE CURSE OF MINERVA " 89 

the court of George III, and his poem, accordingly, became 
a severe political invective, interspersed with vilification of 
the Scotch climate and the Scotch people. It is interesting 
to compare Churchill's description of the barrenness and 
dampness of Scotland with Byron's picture of that country 
as "a land of meanness, sophistry, and mist." The former 
poet calls Scotchmen "Nature's bastards"; Byron refers 
to Scotland as "that bastard land." Both writers have 
caustic lines on the shrewdness, importunity, and avarice 
of the Scotch people, wherever they settle. Although the 
similarities between the satires warrant no deduction, there 
is a possibility that Byron, who undoubtedly had read the 
Prophecy of Famine, may have recollected certain passages 
in a poem the spirit of which is very like his own. ' 

Basing his argument chiefly on the fact that a couplet of 
Pope^ is parodied in Byron's lines, 

"'Blest paper-credit!' who shall dare to sing? 
It clogs like lead Corruption's weary wing," 

Weiser has endeavored to prove that Byron borrowed some- 
thing from Pope's Epistle to Lord Bathiirst. A verbal 
comparison of the two passages in question fails to V)ring 
out any striking resemblance. Pope continues with a 
comment on the ease with which paper money may be used 
in bribery; Byron, after quoting Pope, does not touch on this 
point, and his lines seem to be merely a passing quotation, 
not closely connected with what comes before or after. In 
no other place in The Curse of Minerva are there phrases 
which have even a remote likeness to the language of Pope's 
Epistle. On such grounds as Weiser advances it might be 

' Churchill's poem ends with a prophecy from the Goddess of Famine 
just as Byron's ends with Minerva's curse. 

^ "Blest paper-credit! last and best supply! 
That lends Corruption lighter wings to fly!" 

{Epistle to Lord Bathursl, On the Use of Riches, 40-41 .) 



90 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

shown that Byron, in Beppo, is imitating Cowper, because 
he quotes a line from that poet. 

Byron's attack on Lord Elgin in Childe Harold had been 
animated by a love for Greece and a pity for her forlorn 
state among the nations, as well as by resentment of Eng- 
land's cold-blooded attitude in allowing such depredations. 
In the passage Byron had covered Elgin with abuse: — 

' ' Cold as the crags upon his native coast, 
His mind as barren and his head as hard, 
Is he whose head conceived, whose hand prepared, 
Aught to displace Athena's poor remains."'' 

These Imes were published in March, 1812. In 18 13, James 
and Horace Smith, famous through their Rejected Addresses, 
appeared again as authors in Horace in Londo7i, a series of 
imitations of the first two books of the Odes of Horace. In 
this volume, Ode XV, The Parthenon, modelled fairly closely 
in plot on Horace's Prophecy of Nerens, treats of the contro- 
versy concerning Elgin. A clear reference to Byron in the 
poem makes it certain that the Smiths had read Childe 
Harold and that they concurred with his expressed disap- 
proval of Elgin's conduct. 

The Parthenon, owing perhaps to mere coincidence, per- 
haps to the possibility that the Smiths may have had access 
to The Cnrse of Minerva in manuscript, is in its outlines and 
especially in the general features of Minerva's curse, singu- 
larly like Byron's satire. The Smiths, following Horace, 
describe Elgin's ship as hastening homeward, laden with 
the "guilty prize." Suddenly Minerva rises, like Nereus, 
from the sea and, with the language of a prophet, pro- 
nounces a curse on the destroyer, predicting that Elgin will 
suffer misfortunes and go down through the ages remem- 
bered for his shamelessness. The poem, like Byron's, closes 
with Minerva speaking. Certain lines in The Parthenon: — 

• Childe Harold, II., 12. 



HINTS FROM HORACE AND THE CURSE OF MINERVA 9I 

"Goth, Vandal, Moslem, had their flags unfurl'd 
Around my still un violated fane, 
Two thousand summers had with dews impearl'd 
Its marble heights nor left a mouldering stain; 
'T was thine to ruin all that all had spared in vain," ■ 

epitomize a longer passage in The Curse of Minerva.^ In 
Childe Harold Byron had made no mention of the fact that 
Elgin's marriage had been dissolved by act of Parliament 
in 18 18, but in The Curse of Minerva he made the goddess 
allude to the domestic scandal. A similar passage is intro- 
duced into Minerva's prophecy in The Parthenon. These 
resemblances in structure and sometimes in phrasing may, 
of course, have occurred independently, or may have arisen 
from the chance that Byron, as well as the Smiths, was 
thinking of Horace's Ode. On the other hand, there is a 
possibility that the Smiths, already familiar with the lines 
on Elgin in Childe Harold, may have read The Curse of 
Minerva in manuscript and have unconsciously reproduced 
some of its features in their poem. 

By a natural transition Minerva, in Byron's satire, leaves 
Elgin and turns to England in the words, 

"Hers were the deeds that taught her lawless son 
To do what oft Britannia's self had done." 

This introduces a survey of England's foreign affairs, 
designed to expose that country's despotic policy towards 
her weaker rivals and dependents. The goddess treats 
briefly of England's treachery to Denmark in the battle of 
Copenhagen, of the recent uprisings of the natives in India, 
and of the misfortunes of the Peninsular War in Spain and 
Portugal, and finally, touching upon domestic matters, 

^ The Parthenon^ stanza 3. ^ The Curse of Minerva, 95-116. 



92 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

uncovers the distress and misery of the laboring classes in 
England and the inefficiency of the government in dealing 
with internal problems. She ends with a picture of the 
Furies waving their kindled brands above the distracted 
realm, while ascending fires shake their "red shadow o'er 
the startled Thames." Such a fate, says Minerva, and 
Byron with her, is deserved by a nation which had lit pyres 
"from Tagus to the Rhine." 

This passage, commonplace enough in its style, is signi- 
ficant in that it shows Byron almost for the first time taking 
a keen and active interest in politics, and posing as an 
adverse critic of England's foreign policy. It was easy for 
the man who could condemn England's conduct towards 
Denmark and India to develop into an outspoken radical. 

In neglecting and partly disowning The Curse of Minerva, 
Byron was probably acting with good judgment. It is 
assuredly unworthy of the author of Childe Harold. Only 
the opening passage is notable for its genuine poetry, and 
the satire, except in structure, is inferior to English Bards. 
It is equally true, however, that it is superior in most re- 
spects to Hints from Horace and The Waltz. The Curse of 
Minerva, with its narrative basis, is a variation from the 
other early classical satires ; but it has the same elaborate 
machinery of notes, the same method of direct attack — 
although in this instance it is conveyed through the mouth 
of a third character — and the same extravagance and 
bitterness of tone. In managing the heroic couplet, Byron 
never surpassed his skill in English Bards. After 1811 his 
acquired ability to handle other measures withdrew his 
attention from the metre of Pope, with the result that his 
versification in the ensuing classical satires shows signs of 
deterioration and weakness. It is to this period of decline 
that Hints from Horace and The Curse of Minerva belong. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION 

During the seven years between the completion of The 
Curse of Minerva and the publication of Beppo, Byron's 
contributions to satire were, on the whole, sporadic, ephem- 
eral, and unworthy of his genius. He composed in this 
period only one long formal satire. The Waltz, and that 
appeared anonymously, to be disowned by its author. The 
remaining satiric product may be divided into three groups : 
political epigrams and squibs, like Windsor Poetics, many 
of them printed in the newspapers, others sent in letters to 
friends; jocular and fragmentary jgwx d' esprit, often, like 
The Devil's Drive, semi-political ; and ironical and invective 
verses dealing with his domestic troubles, illustrated by 
A Sketch. Nearl}^ all are timely impromptus, to few of 
which he gave careful revision. The period is plainly 
transitional, for it marks the gradual change in B3^ron's 
satiric method from the formal vituperation of English 
Bards to the colloquial raillery of Beppo. Little by little he 
forsakes the heroic couplet for other measures; more and 
more he diverges in practice from the principles of his 
masters. Pope and Gifford. As he grows more experienced 
and more mature, he tends to employ mockery as well as 
abuse, and in this development is to be seen an approach to 
the manner and spirit of Don J nan. 

The causes for the comparative unproductivity in satire 
of this period in Byron's life are by no means difficult to 
discover. The years which followed his return from abroad 

93 



94 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

saw his dramatic entrance into London society, his associa- 
tion with leaders in politics and literature, his engagement 
to Miss Milbanke and eventual marriage to her on January 
2, 1815, and his separation from her in 18 16. Before 1812 
he had been a somewhat isolated author; now he was a 
prominent and much discussed personage, busy with duties 
and engagements. It is true that even in the midst of 
these exciting days he did not cease writing; but his interest 
had been turned to the verse romance, popularized in 
England by Scott, and his literary work resulted in The 
Giaour and the narrative poems which followed it in 
rapid succession. Engaged in so many pleasurable pur- 
suits, the poet had small inclination for sustained effort, and 
contented himself with pouring forth, with astonishing 
facility and fluency, these melodramatic Eastern tales. 
Possibly, too, his circumstances were so fortunate up to 18 16 
that he did not resort instinctively, as he did later, to satire 
as a means of voicing his dissatisfaction with men and things. 
It was not until he had been driven from his native land by 
the condemnation of his countrymen that his satiric spirit 
became again a dominant mood. 

To comprehend the development of Byron's political 
views, it is necessary to understand the conditions under 
which he formed them. After two previous attacks of 
insanity, George III became permanently demented in 18 10, 
and the Regency Bill, making Prince George actual ruler 
of the nation, was passed on February 5, 18 10. His well- 
known vicious propensities and illicit amours had made 
him unpopular, and when, on February 23, 18 12, he first 
appeared in public as sovereign, he was coldly received. 
It had been generally supposed that with the power in his 
hands, he would reward the Whigs who had stood by him 
so faithfully through his many difficulties, but after vain 
efforts to organize a coalition ministry, he appointed Lord 
Liverpool as Prime Minister on June 9, 1812, and the Tories 



THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION 95 

retained complete control over affairs of state. This action, 
equivalent to treachery, made the Regent a target for Whig 
abuse, and that party never ceased reviling the ruler who 
had been disloyal to their cause. 

Byron at Cambridge had rather lukewarmly supported 
Whig doctrines, and when he took his seat in the House of 
Lords, he selected one of the neutral benches. Undoubtedly 
the attack upon him by the Whig Edinburgh Review inclined 
him to look askance on the party of which he was tempera- 
mentally a member; and it will be remembered that in Eng- 
lish Bards he had assailed Lord Holland and other prominent 
Whigs. Once in London, however, he allied himself with 
the opposition, and soon became a regular visitor at Hol- 
land House. His three speeches in Parliament were in 
advocacy of liberal measures, the first, on February 2^, 
1 8 12, being delivered in resistance to a bill instituting special 
penalties against the frame-breakers of Nottingham, and 
the second being a plea for Catholic emancipation. Scott's 
suggestion that Byron's liberalism was due "to the pleasure 
it afforded him as a vehicle of displaying his wit and satire 
against individuals in office" is not needed to explain the 
latter's preference for Whig policies, for the poet would have 
joined himself inevitably to the more progressive and more 
radical party. Although his political beliefs at this time 
were somewhat vague and occasionally inconsistent, he was 
by nature an individualist and an opponent of conserva- 
tism. His espousal of liberal views may, however, have 
been assisted by his intimacy with Moore, Leigh Hunt, and 
other radical writers. 

In reply to Byron's attack on him in English Bards, 
Moore had sent the satirist a letter on January i, 1810, 
preparatory to a challenge unless reparation were offered. 
Fortunately the note did not reach Byron until his landing 
in England, when the Irishman's wrath had cooled and he 
himself was in a repentant mood. A short correspondence 



96 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

led to the meeting of the two, with Campbell and Rogers, at 
the house of the latter in November, 1811, where the differ- 
ence was amicably adjusted. On December nth Byron 
invited Moore to visit him at Newstead, and though Moore 
found it impossible to accept, the poets soon became good 
friends. ' It was not until the formation of this friendship 
that Byron began to take any active part in current politics; 
during the rest of his life, however, he was linked with Moore 
as a satirist on the Whig side and was, to a considerable 
extent, influenced by the latter's work.^ 

As we have seen, Moore had failed in his attempts at 
formal satire; but in 1812, shortly after his acquaintance 
with Byron began, he commenced his persistent and stinging 
gibes at the Regent and his coterie. On February 13, 1812, 
the Prince sent his notorious letter to the Duke of York, 
asking for Whig support, and Moore's admirable verse 
parody was soon in private circulation. This was one of the 
earliest, and certainly one of the most delightful, of the 
many brilliant satires with which Moore, for years, amused 
the town. In March, 1813, under the pen-name of "Thomas 
Brown, the Younger," he published Intercepted Letters; or the 
Two-pe7iny Postbag, in which he borrowed the structure of 
the anonymous Groans of the Talents by pretending to have 
discovered a number of letters from various celebrated 
personages. Moore's letters, eight in all, are in rapid ana- 
pestic and octosyllabic metres, and are unusually bright 
and piquant, full of allusions to the scandalous gossip of 

' Byron expressed his esteem for his new friend in his Journal, De- 
cember I o, 1 8 1 3 : — ' ' I have just had the kindest letter from Moore. I do 
think that man is the best-hearted, the only hearted being I ever encoun- 
tered; and then, his talents are equal to his feehngs" {Letters, ii., 371). 

2 See Byron's impromptu Hues to Moore in a letter of May 19, 1812, 
in which he says, speaking of a projected visit to Hunt in prison: — 
"Pray Phoebus at length our political malice 
May not get us lodgings within the same palace." 

{Letters, ii., 204-209.) 



THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION 97 

court life. Although Moore continued his satires in nu- 
merous verses of a similar type, he never excelled this first 
success. 

In March, 1812, Byron joined Moore in assailing the 
Regent. In the Whig Morning Chronicle for March 7th 
was printed a short epigram without a signature, called 
A Sympathetic Address to a Young Lady. The lines read 
as follows: — 

"Weep, daughter of a Royal line, 

A Sire's disgrace, a realm's decay; 
Ah ! happy ! if each tear of thine 

Could wash a father's fault away! 
Weep — for thy tears are Virtue's tears — 

Auspicious to these suffering isles; 
And be each drop, in future years. 

Repaid thee by thy people's smiles." 

The poem refers to an incident which had taken place 
at Carlton House a few days before, when the Princess 
Charlotte had burst into tears on learning that her royal 
father was intending to desert his Whig adherents. No one, 
apparently, suspected that Byron was the author; but in 
the second edition of the Corsair (February, 18 14) the verses 
appeared as Lines to a Lady Weeping, publicly avowed 
by him. His acknowledgment brought upon him a storm 
of abuse from Tory papers — the Courier, the Morning Post, 
and the Sun — and a discussion ensued entirely out of pro- 
portion to the merit of the epigram which had excited it.^ 
"How odd," wrote Byron to Murray, "that eight lines 
should have given birth, I really think, to eight thousand.''^ 
It is probable that no single production of Byron's aroused 
more hostile comment at the time of its appearance. 

Byron's attitude towards the Regent at this period 
' See Letters, ii., 463-492 (Appendix vii.). ^ Letters, iii., 61. 



98 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

exposes him to a charge of double-dealing. In June, 1812, 
three months after the composition of the epigram, he met 
the Prince at a ball in an interview in which the two men 
conversed on Scott and his poetry. In relating the talk to 
Scott, Byron mentions that the Regent's opinions were 
conveyed "with a tone and taste which gave me a very high 
idea of his abilities and accomplishments, which I had 
hitherto considered as confined to manners, certainly supe- 
rior to those of any living gentlenia?i."^ It is probable that 
Byron was a little flattered by the Prince's condescension; 
but his own tactlessness in acknowledging his epigram pre- 
vented any further intercourse, and he subsequently became 
the Regent's open enemy. 

Jeaflfreson suggests that Byron's avowal of the Lines to a 
Lady Weeping may have been hastened by his sympathy 
with Leigh Hunt,^ who, with his brother, John Hunt, had 
been tried for a libel on the Regent printed in their Exam- 
iner for March 12, 18 12, and sentenced to two years' impris- 
onment and a fine of 500 pounds. Byron saw a kindred 
spirit in Hunt, and, after meeting him in prison in May, 
1813, became his close friend. Hunt, on his part, stood by 
Byron in his Examiner at the time of the latter's separation 
from his wife, and dedicated to him his Rimini (1816). 
Byron, after the unfortunate circumstances connected with 
The Liberal, modified his lofty opinion of Hunt; but in 18 13 
the latter was, to Moore and Byron, simply a martyr to 
liberal principles, a man who had been unjustly persecuted 
and condemned. ^ There is, however, no evidence to justify 
JeaflEreson's conclusion. 

In his satire on "the first gentleman of Europe," Byron 

' Letters, ii., 134. 

' The Real Lord Byron, ii., 51. 

3 On December 2, 1813, Byron wrote Hunt: — "I have a thorough 
esteem for that independence of spirit which you have maintained with 
sterhng talent, and at the expense of some suffering" (Letters, ii., 296). 



THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION 99 

was both less prolific and more savage than Moore. His 
satiric spirit, as usual, was stimulated by particular inci- 
dents which offered an opportunity for timely comment. 
It had been ascertained accidentally that Charles I had 
been buried in the vault with Henry VIII; and on April i, 
1 8 13, the Regent was present at the opening of the coffins 
containing the ashes of the two sovereigns. This episode 
Byron made the theme of two short satires : Windsor Poetics, 
circulated in manuscript among his friends, but not printed 
until 1 8 19; and the lines On a Royal Visit to the Vaults, pub- 
lished first in 1904. The point in both poems is the same — 
that George combines the vices of his two predecessors : 

"Charles to his people, Henry to his wife, — 
In him the double tyrant starts to life." 

In mentioning Windsor Poetics, the better of the two poems^ 
to Moore, Byron confessed, with some discernment: "It 
is too farouche; but, truth to say, my satires are not very 
playful."' 

The vindictive seriousness of Byron's satire, as contrasted 
with Moore's playfulness, is nowhere better shown than in 
the Condolatory Address to Sarah, Countess of Jersey, printed 
without his permission in the Champion, July 31, 1814, after 
it had been sent to the lady herself in a letter of May 29. 
Once a favorite of the Regent's, Lady Jersey had incurred 
his dislike by her kindness to the deserted Princess of Wales, 
with the result that the Prince returned to Mrs. Mee, the 
painter, a miniature of the Countess, and announced his 
intention of ignoring her. Byron, who had been more than 
once the guest of Lady Jersey, saw a chance to strike a blow 
in her defense by assailing the Regent, and his lines on that 
ruler are scathing : 

' Letters, iii., 58. 



100 LORD RVRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

"If he, that Vain Old Man, whom truth admits 
Heir of his fatlier's crown, and of his wits, 
If his corrupted eye and withered heart, 
Couhl with thy j;entle image bear to part; 
That tasteless shame be his, and ours the grief 
To gaze on Beauty's band without its chief." 

In satire of this sort there is nothing si)ortivc or delicate; it 
is sheer invective of the kind which Byron had used on 
Clarke and was to em|)loy against Castlereagh. 

Byron never became reconciled to the Regent, not even 
when, as George IV, the latter ascended the throne. Indeed 
what is probably the poet's most bitter estimate of his sov- 
ereign was sent in a letter to Moore on September 17. 1821 — 
the lines now entitled The Irish Avatar. Queen Caroline 
had dieil on August 7, 1821, shortlx- after the failure of her 
husband to secure a divorce, and not over a week later, 
the king was feasted with regal pomp at Dublin by the 
servile Irish office-holders. The combination of circum- 
stances was lit material for satire, and Byron spoke out in 
stanzas that ring with rage and contem|)t: — 

"Shout, drink, feast, and flatter! Oh! Erin, how low 
Wert thou sunk by misfortune and tyranny, till 
Thy welcome of tyrants had plunged thee below 
The de[)th of thy deep in a deeper gulf still." 

The satire in this poem is as spontaneous and sincere as 
any Byron ever wrote; it is passionate, convincing, laden 
with noble scorn. The two methods of irony and invective 
are admirably mingled, without a trace of humor. 

We have already noticed some early poems in which 
Byron had evinced a liking for uncommon rhymes. In the 
humorous Fannvell to Malta, written May 26, 181 1, and 
printed in 18 16, he emploN-cd octosyllabics, with such 



THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION lOI 

rhymes as : yawn sirs — dancers, fault's in — waltzing, prate 
is — gratis. The Devil's Drive, an irregular and amorphous 
fragment, broken off on December 9, 18 13, also contains 
some extraordinary rhymes ; but it deserves attention espe- 
cially because it anticipates, to some extent, the thought 
and manner of Don Jiian. It is styled a sequel to The 
DeviVs Walk, a fanciful ballad composed by Southey and 
Coleridge in 1799, but attributed by Byron to Porson, the 
great Cambridge scholar. Byron's poem, a rambling and 
discursive satire, is crammed with allusions to current 
events, prophetic of the views which he was to advocate 
during the remainder of his career. It describes a night 
visit of the Devil to his favorites on earth, in the course of 
which he pauses to survey the battle-field of Leipzig, and 
then, passing on to England, investigates a Methodist 
chapel, the Houses of Parliament, a royal ball, and other 
supposed resorts of his disciples. Byron's portrayal of the 
horrors of war is probably his first satiric expression of what 
was to become a frequent theme in his later work, and 
especially in Don Juan. As the Devil gazes down with 
glee at the bloody plain of Leipzig, the satirist remarks : 

"Not often on earth had he seen such a sight, 
Nor his work done half so well : 
For the field ran so red with the blood of the dead. 
That it blushed like the waves of Hell!"^ 

The visit of the Devil to Parliament, with the poet's com- 
ment on the spectacle there, is reminiscent of some sections 
of the Rolliad. The satire concludes with some caustic 
characterizations of Tory statesmen, some observations on 
the immorality of round dancing, and a picture of sixty 
scribbling reviewers, brewing damnation for authors. 

' Byron's attitude towards war recalls the sardonic passage on the 
same subject in Gulliver's Travels, Part IV. 



102 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

The sij^nificant feature of The Devil's Drive is the mocking 
spirit which animates the poem. Although the humor is 
sometimes clumsy and cheap, and the style formless and 
crude, the underlying tone is no longer ferocious, and the 
satire is no longer mere invective. The work is practicall}'' 
the only satire of Byron's before Beppo in which are mingled 
the cool scorn, the bizarre wit, and the grotesque realism 
which were to be blended in Do7t Juan. The poem, too, 
is proof that by 1814, at least, Byron was firmly fixed in 
most of his political opinions. He had shown his dislike 
for Castlereagh and the Regent; he had expressed himself 
as opposed to all war and bloodshed, except in a righteous 
cause; and he had become an advanced liberal thinker, 
ready to oppose all unprogressive measures. 

After the publication of the Corsair in January, 18 14, 
Byron announced his intention of quitting poetry.' His 
resolution, however, was short-lived, for on April loth he 
wrote Murray that he had just finished an "ode on the fall 
of Napoleon."^ Byron had, from the first, been interested 
in the career of Napoleon, with whom he felt, apparently, 
an instinctive sympathy. The poet's expressed judgments 
of the Emperor seem, however, to indicate several changes 
in sentiment. In Childe Harold he had called him "Gaul's 
Vulture," and had spoken of "one bloated chief's unwhole- 
some reign"; in his Journal for November 17, 1813, he said: 
"He (Napoleon) has been a Heros de Roman of mine — on 
the Continent — I don't want him here."^ The Ode to 
Napoleon Buonaparte, composed in a single day after the 
news of the abdication of Fontainebleau, is a severe attack 
on the fallen Emperor, in which Byron, reproaching him for 
not having committed suicide, terms him "ill-minded man," 
"Dark Spirit," and "throneless homicide," ending with an 
uncomplimentary contrast between him and Washington. 
Nevertheless, when the report of Waterloo reached him, 
' Loiters, iii., 64. ^ Letters, iii., 66. ^ Letters, ii., 324. 



THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION IO3 

Byron cried: "I am damned sorry for it." In three poems 
written shortly after — Napoleon's Farewell, Lines from the 
French, and An Ode from the French — he shows a kind of 
admiration for the Corsican. Finally came the splendid 
stanzas on Napoleon in Childe Harold, III,* ending with the 
personal reference, implying that Byron's own faults and 
virtues were those of the French emperor and exile. 

The one long classical satire during this period is The 
Waltz, which has to do primarily with society. On October 
18, 1812, Byron wrote Murray: "I have a poem on Waltz- 
ing for you, of which I make you a present; but it must be 
anonymous. It is in the old style of English Bards, and 
Scotch Reviewer s.''^ The satire was printed in the spring 
of 1813, but was so coldly received that Byron, on April 21, 
1 8 13, begged Murray to deny the report that he was the 
author of "a certain malicious publication on Waltzing."^ 
The whole affair leaves Byron under the suspicion of 
duplicity. 

The poem was published with a motto from the Aeneid : 

"Qualis in Eurotse ripis, aut per juga Cynthi, 
Exercet Diana choros," 

and with a prefatory letter from "Horace Hornem, Esq.," 
the professed author. This imaginary personage is a 
country gentleman of a Midland county, who has married 
a middle-aged Maid of Honor. During a winter in town 
with his wife's relative, the Countess of Waltzaway, Hornem 
sees his spouse at a ball, waltzing with an hussar, and, after 
several vain attempts to master the new dance himself, 
composes the satire in its honor, "with the aid of William 
Fitzgerald, Esq. — and a few hints from Dr. Busby." In the 
poem, however, Byron apparently makes no effort to fit 
the language or style to this fictitious figure. 

• Childe Harold, III., 36-52. > Letters, ii., 176. ^ Letters, ii., 202. 



104 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

Although the waltz, brought originally from Germany, 
was, in 1812, steadily winning its way to acceptance by the 
more fashionable element of society, its introduction was 
still meeting with opposition from many quarters. Byron, 
as censor of the Italian Opera and of Little's Poems, was 
certainly not inconsistent in disapproving of the foreign 
dance on the ground of its immodesty. Doubtless, too, 
his own lameness, which prevented him from participating 
in the amusement, had some influence on his attitude. He 
had denounced the dance in English Bards in the line, 

"Now in loose waltz the thin-clad daughters leap," 

and in Section 25 of The Devil's Drive, he had made the 
Devil's fairest disciples waltzers, and had quoted Satan's 
words : 

"Should I introduce these revels among my younger devils. 
They would all turn perfectly carnal." 

Byron's declaration that The Waltz is in the style of 
English Bards is not altogether exact, for though the metre 
of the two satires is the same and the same machinery of 
prose notes is used in both poems, the first-named work has 
a kind of jocularity which distinguishes it from the more 
severe earlier production. The Waltz, moreover, has some 
features of the mock-heroic, although the conventional 
structure of that genre is not made conspicuous. Thus it 
begins with an apostrophe to "Terpsichore, Muse of the 
many-twinkling feet," and later, in true heroic manner, the 
author exclaims, 

"O muse of Motion! say 
How first to Albion found thy Waltz her way?" 

The personification of "Waltz," carried out for a time in 
such phrases as "Nimble Nymph," "Imperial Waltz," 



THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION IO5 

"Endearing Waltz," and "Voluptuous Waltz," is, however, 
often disregarded or forgotten. She is described as a lovely- 
stranger, "borne on the breath of Hyperborean gales," 
from Hamburg to England, and welcomed there by the 
"daughters of the land." At this point the mock-heroic 
element ceases to be noticeable, and the rest of the poem is 
devoted to an exposure of the iniquity which the new dance 
had brought into English high society. 

It is in The Waltz that Byron for the first time manifests 
the ability to deal with political questions in a lighter vein, 
in a manner something like that of Moore. He alludes, 
for instance, to the Regent's well-known preference for 
ladies of a mature age : 

"And thou, my Prince! whose sovereign taste and will 
It is to love the lovely beldames still." 

This topic Moore touched upon frequently, particularly in 
Intercepted Letters, II, from Major M'Mahon, the Regent's 
parasite and pander, and in The Fudge Family in Paris, 
Letter X, in which Biddy Fudge says, 

"The Regent loves none but old women you know." 

A note to line 162 of The Waltz has a joking reference to the 
Regent's whiskers, an adornment which had excited Moore's 
merriment, especially in his "rejected drama," The Book, 
appended to Letter VII of Intercepted Letters. The fact 
that the dance is an importation from Germany allows 
Byron to sum up ironically what England owes to that 
country : 

"A dozen dukes, some kings, a Queen — and Waltz." 

The body of the satire is occupied with a description of 
the dance itself, given in lines which are too often more 



I06 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

prurient and suggestive than the waltz could possibly have 
been. Byron is here surely not at his best, and his coarse- 
ness is not extenuated by his alleged moral purpose. Wei- 
ser's judgment that The Waltz is the ripest of Byron's 
youthful poems will, to most critics, seem unwarranted. 
There is barely a line of the satire which is either witty or 
epigrammatic; the style is low and the language is cheap in 
tone; the versification is lifeless and dull. The one thing 
for which it is to be noted is the spirit of mockery sometimes 
displayed, and the tendency to jest rather than to inveigh. 
The competition for a suitable dedicatory address for the 
reopening of Drury Lane Theatre in 1812,' memorable 
as the occasion for the skilful parodies contained in the 
Rejected Addresses^ of James and Horace Smith, led Byron 
also to compose a rather extraordinary satire. The genuine 
address of Dr. Busby (i 755-1 838) had been rejected, along 
with those of the other competitors; but on October 14th, 
two or three evenings after the formal opening of the theatre, 
Busby's son endeavored to recite his father's poem from one 
of the boxes, and nearly started a riot. Byron thereupon 
wrote a Parenthetical Address, by Dr. Plagiary, which was 
printed in the Morning Chronicle for October 23, 1812. 
This satire, which Byron called "a parody of a peculiar 
kind," is noteworthy only in that it selects lines and phrases 

' Byron himself was asked to compete, but resolved not to risk his 
reputation in such a contest. Although 112 poems were submitted, 
all were adjudged unsatisfactory, and Byron was eventually requested 
by Lord Holland to save the situation. His verses were recited on 
October 10, 1812, but met with small commendation. 

^ This little volume, published in 18 12, after having been refused 
by Murray and others, proved an overwhelming success. Byron was 
delighted with Cui Bono ? a clever imitation of the gloomy and mournful 
portions of Childe Harold, in the same stanzaic form. Among the other 
writers parodied were Wordsworth, Crabbe, Moore, Coleridge, and 
Lewis. Byron said: — "I think the Rejected Addresses by far the best 
thing of the kind since the Rolliad" {Letters, ii., 177). 



THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION 10/ 

from Busby's address, and connecting them by satiric com- 
ments, manages to make the original seem ridiculous. 

The story of Byron's love affairs between 1812 and 18 17 
has been so often related that any presentation of the details 
here is unnecessary, especially since in only one case did his 
amours lead him to satire. According to Medwin, Lady 
Caroline Lamb, the fickle and incorrigible lady who so 
violently sought Byron for a lover, called one day at the 
poet's apartments, and finding him away, wrote in a volume 
of Vathek the words "Remember me." When Byron dis- 
covered the warning, he added to it two stanzas of burning 
invective, concluding, 

"Remember thee! Aye, doubt it not. 
Thy husband too shall think of thee; 
By neither shalt thou be forgot, 

Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!" 

Several theories have been advanced to explain the causes 
and results of Byron's unfortunate marriage, but the main 
facts seem to be simple enough. In 18 13 he proposed to 
Miss Milbanke, a cousin of Lady Caroline Lamb's by 
marriage, and was refused. The intimacy of the two con- 
tinued, however, and a second ofifer, made in 18 14, was 
accepted. The wedding, which took place on January 2, 
18 15, was accompanied by some inauspicious omens, but 
the honeymoon, spent at Halnaby, was apparently happy. 
Byron's financial circumstances were straitened, and, on his 
return to London, he was pursued by creditors. He himself 
was irritable, unsuited for a quiet domestic life, and Lady 
Byron was probably over- puritanical. At any rate, who- 
ever may have been the more at fault, his wife, soon after 
the opening of 18 16, left him, took steps to have his mental 
condition examined, and later demanded a separation. In 



I08 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

this crisis of his life, public opinion sided with Lady Byron, 
and the poet became a social outcast.^ The deed of sepa- 
ration was signed on April 22, 1816, and on the 25th of the 
same month, Byron left England forever. 

During the arrangements for the separation Byron 
showed no resentment towards his wife. Indeed he wrote 
Moore on March 8, 1816: — "I do not believe — that there 
ever was a better, or even a brighter, a kinder, or a more 
amiable and agreeable being than Lady Byron. "^ His 
wrath fell heavily, however, on Mrs. Clermont, Lady 
Byron's old governess, who had come to stay with her 
mistress when the trouble began. On her Byron laid the 
responsibility for the events which followed. He thought 
her a spy on his actions, accused her of having broken open 
his desk in order to read his private papers, and considered 
her an impudent meddler. As he signed the deed of separa- 
tion, he muttered, "This is Mrs. Clermont's work." His 
full rage against her burst out in A Sketch, finished March 
29, 1 816, and published, through some one's indiscretion, 
in the Tory Champion for April 14th. Fifty copies of this 
satire were printed for private circulation, with Byron's 
poem Fare Thee Well, addressed to his wife. The appearance 
of these verses in the newspapers started a violent- contro- 
versy in the daily press, carried out on party lines. 

A Sketch, containing 104 lines in heroic couplets, is a 
coarse and scurrilous attack on Mrs. Clermont, beginning 
with a short account of her life, 

"Born in the garret, in the kitchen bred. 
Promoted thence to deck her mistress' head," 

and closing with a terrible imprecation, 

' Byron himself said of this period: — "I felt that, if what was whis- 
pered and murmured was true, I was unfit for England; if false, England 
was unfit for me " (Reply to Blackwood's, Letters, iv., 479). 

^ Letters, iii., 272. 



THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION IO9 

"May the strong curse of crush'd affections light 
Back on thy bosom with reflected bHght! 
And make thee, in thy leprosy of mind, 
As loathsome to thyself as to mankind! " 

Perhaps no more savage satire was ever levelled at a woman ; 
it is even more venomous than Pope's assault on Lady 
Montagu in what Mr. Birrell calls "the most brutal lines 
ever written by man of woman." Murray wrote Byron, 
after showing the satire to Rogers, Canning, and Frere:— 
"They have all seen and admired the lines; they agree that 
you have produced nothing better ; that satire is your forte ; 
and so in each class as you choose to adopt it." ^ These men, 
however, were active supporters of Byron, and their praise 
seems extravagant. Whatever his provocation may have 
been — and it was probably great — Byron did not enhance 
his fame by this barbarous tirade. 

In the very midst of his anger the poet pauses in the 
poem to pay his wife a tribute and to assert his love for her ; 
but not long after he turned to assail Lady Byron herself. 
Indeed he is said to have attached an epigram to the deed of 
separation, 

"A year ago you swore, fond she! 
'To love, to honour,' and so forth: 
Such was the vow you pledged to me. 
And here 's exactly what 't is worth." 

In September, 1816, when he was in Switzerland, he wrote 
the Lines on Hearing that Lady Byron Was III, in which he 
fairly gloats over her in her sickness. No one can mistake 
the meaning of the line, 

"I have had many foes, but none like thee," 

or of the charge, 
' Letters, iii., 278. 



no LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

"Of thy virtues didst thou make a vice, 
Trafficking with them in a purpose cold, 
For present anger and for future gold." 

These stanzas, however, were not printed until 1832. In 
the meantime Byron had continued the attack on his wife 
in Childe Harold, III, 117, and IV, 130-138, in Don Juan, 
and in an occasional short epigram sent to friends in Eng- 
land. There can be no doubt that as the years went by 
and his attempts at reconciliation were thwarted, he grew 
thoroughly embittered against her. 

Byron's habits of thought were so frequently satirical 
that it was natural for him to introduce satire even into 
poems which were obviously of a different character. In 
his preface to Childe Harold he announced his intention of 
following Beattie in giving full rein to his inclination, and 
being "either droll or pathetic, descriptive or sentimental, 
tender or satirical" as the mood came to him. In that 
poem the moralizing and didactic elements often closely 
approach satire, and there are some passages of genuine 
invective, a few of which have already been indicated. 

In the first canto a visit to Cintra leads Byron into an 
indictment of the Convention of Cintra (1808), signed by 
Kellerman and Wellesley, by the tenns of which the French 
troops in Portugal were permitted to evacuate with artillery, 
cavalry, and equipment. This agreement was regarded by 
the home officials as equivalent to treason, and the men 
responsible were subjected to some rigorous criticism. 
Byron took the popular side of the question in saying, 

"Ever since that martial synod met, 
Brittannia sickens, Cintra, at thy name."^ 

This patriotic mood seems, however, to have been a passing 
one. In after years he was not inclined to take the part 
• Childe Harold, I., 26. 



THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION HI 

of his country. Of a different sort are the stanzas on a 
London Sunday' which, in Moore's opinion, disfigure the 
poem. Canto I has also some satiric animadversions upon 
women, notably the lines, 

"Maidens, like moths, are ever caught by glare, 
And Mammon wins his way where Seraphs might despair. ' ' ^ 

In the final version of the first two cantos some stanzas of 
a satiric tone were omitted, among them lines on Frere, 
Carr, and Wellesley in Canto I, and passages on Elgin! 
Hope, Cell, and the "gentle Dilettanti " in Canto II. 

A few ephemeral verses of this period still remain unno- 
ticed : an occasional epistle in rhyme to Moore or Murray; 
four brief squibs on Lord Thurlow's poetry; and several 
unimportant epigrams on trivial subjects. No one of them 
is significant as literature, and they may well be passed by 
without comment. 

In a last glance at Byron's satiric production from 1811 
to 1 8 18 we perceive that, with the single exception of Hints 
from Horace, an avowed imitation, his work was directed 
towards definite ends. He was little given to vague denun- 
ciation; on the contrary, in touch as he was with current 
events and a keen observer of what was going on around 
him, he aimed, in his satire, at specific evils and follies. It 
is interesting, too, that most of his work after his return 
from abroad was journalistic and transitory, hastily con- 
ceived and carelessly composed. At the same time there 
are signs of a change in spirit. Though he still continues 
to burst out into invective on provocation, he is beginning 
to recognize the value of humor and mockery. More and 
more he is employing new metrical forms, and neglecting 
the heroic couplet for freer and more varied measures. 
When Byron left England in 1816, he had been taught 

' Childe Harold, I., 69-70. . Childe Harold, I., 9. 



112 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

much by experience and had acquired some maturity of 
judgment. To some extent, though not entirely, he had 
outgrown the affectation and morbid pessimism of his boy- 
hood. In a stern school he had learned many lessons, and, 
as a result, his satire from the time of his voluntary exile 
until his death displays a dift'erent spirit. When at last 
he discovered an artistic form and style in which to embody 
it, it showed a decided gain in merit and originality over 
English Bards, which, in 1817, was still the best satire he 
had written. 



CHAPTER VII 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE 



Shortly after the momentous year 1816, an extraordinary 
development took place in the form and spirit of Byron's 
satiric work in verse. Up to this date, as we have seen, 
his satires of any literary value had followed, as a rule, the 
general plan and manner used by the authors of such typical 
productions as the Dunciad, the Rosciad, and the Baviad. 
In some ephemeral verses, it is true, he had shown signs 
of breaking away from the EngHsh classical tradition; but 
few, if any, of these unimportant occasional poems had 
been printed in book form. They had appeared in news- 
papers or in letters to correspondents, and Byron himself 
would have made no claim for their permanence. His 
published satires, then, had deviated little from the stand- 
ard set by Pope and Gifford, a fact all the more remarkable 
because his work in the other branches of literature in which 
he had distinguished himself had revealed a wide discrep- 
ancy between his utterances as a critic and his practice as 
a poet. The enthusiastic and often extravagant eulogist 
of Pope had been the author of the romantic Childe Harold 
and The Giaour. In one field of letters, however, Byron 
had preserved some consistency; before 18 18, considered 
as a satirist, he must be classed as one of the numerous 
disciples of the great Augustan. 

The publication of Beppo, February 28, 1818, may serve 
roughly to denote the visible turning-point between the old 
era and the new one to come. It is significant that this 

"3 



114 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

poem is written, not in the characteristically English heroic 
couplet, but in the thoroughly foreign ottava rima. Re- 
sponsive to an altered and agreeable environment, Byron 
found in Italy and its literature an inspiration which affec- 
ted him even more profoundly than it had Goethe only a 
few decades before. The results of this influence, shown to 
some extent in his dramas though more decidedly in his 
satires, justify terming the years from 1817 until his death 
his Italian period. A mere mention of its contribution to 
satire indicates its importance: it produced Beppo, The 
Vision of Judgment, and Don Juan. Of these poems, 
Beppo is, strictly speaking, a satiric novella; The Vision of 
Judgment is a travesty; and Don Juan is an "epic satire." 
They are, however, all three closely related: first, in that, 
unlike most of the earlier satires, they are narrative in 
method ; second, in that they are infused with what we may 
call, for want of a better phrase, the Italian spirit. What 
this spirit is we may well leave for future discussion. It is 
enough here to point out that it is characterized by a kind 
of playfulness, half gayety and half mockery, often tinged 
with irony and reflecting a cynical tolerance, and that it 
adopts a style informal and colloquial, in which the satirist 
unbends to his readers and feigns to let them into his con- 
fidence. The bare outlining of these features alone proves 
how far Byron departed from the usually serious, dignified, 
and formal satire of Pope and Gifford. 

It would, of course, be erroneous to assume that Byron, 
before he first touched Italian soil in 1816, was unfamiliar 
with the language. If, as Moore says, he had read little 
of it up to 1807, he still must have gained some acquaintance 
with it on his early travels, for on January 14, 18 11, he wrote 
his mother from Athens: — "Being tolerably master of the 
Italian and Modem Greek languages — I can order and dis- 
course more than enough for a reasonable man."^ In a 

' Letters, i., 308. 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE 115 

letter of August 24, i8i i , he used Italian words, ^ and in 1812 
he criticized with much intelligence the "Italian rhymes" of 
W. R. Spencer.^ There are several references in his Diary 
to his study of ItaHan writers.^ In his library, sold in 18 16 
to satisfy his creditors, were many Italian books; indeed 
Fuhrman computes that by that date he had gone through 
Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Boiardo, Bandello, Ariosto, 
Alfileri, Monti, and Goldoni, besides many minor historians, 
essayists, and poets/ Finally when he actually set foot in 
Italy, he was able to assure Murray: — "As for Italian,, I 
am fluent enough." ^ Nothing up to this time, however? 
had induced him to become an imitator of the Italians. 
Although he had commended Hunt's Rimini for having two 
excellent features, "originaHty and Italianism," he had, 
apparently, no idea of emulating Hunt in seeking for a 
stimulus from Italian sources. • ^^''¥4 

In mid-October, 1816, Byron arrived in Italy from Switz- 
erland, making his first halt at Milan. From then on until 
he set out for Greece on July 23, 1823, he was a continuous 
dweller in the peninsula, settling for a time at and near 
Venice, in the meanwhile making an excursion to Florence 
and Rome, going later to Ravenna, and at last residing at 
Pisa and Genoa. The interesting details of his life in these 
places are sufficiently well known through his own letters 
and the records given to the world by Hunt, Medwin, 
the Countess of Blessington, Trelawney, Moore, and others. 
His reputation as the author of Childe Harold served as a 
means of introduction to men of letters; his noble birth 
procured him admission into social circles; and naturally 
he acquired an intimate knowledge of Italian customs, as 
well as a wide acquaintance with the Hterature of the coun- 

• Letters, ii., 5. ^ See Letters, ii., 413 (Appendix i.). 

3 Letters, ii., 379; ii, 403. 

^ See Fuhrman's Die Belesenheit desjungen Byron, Berlin, 1903. 
5 Letters, iii., 19. 



Il6 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

try, both mediaeval and modern. He engaged in several 
liaisons in Venice, and in 1819 became the accepted cicisbeo 
of the Countess Guiccioli. By aiding the secret organiza- 
tion of the Carbonari, he enrolled himself in the struggle 
for Italian independence and made himself an object of 
suspicion to the police. It is no wonder that he wrote to 
Moore in 1820: — " I suspect I know a thing or two of Italy — 
I have lived in the heart of their houses, in parts of Italy 
freshest and least influenced by strangers — have seen and 
become {pars magna Jul) a portion of their hopes, and fears, 
and passions. ' ' ^ The immediate consequences of this assimi- 
lation may be recognized in Beppo, composed in 181 7, 
which, slight and inconsiderable though it seems, is never- 
theless the prelude to the fuller voice of Don Juan, the 
product of Byron's ripest genius. 

The problem is to determine, as far as it is possible, in 
what way and to what extent Byron is indebted to Italy 
and Italian writers in Beppo, The Vision of Judgment, and 
Don Juan. The process of arriving at a satisfactory answer 
to these queries cannot be an easy one, because it so often 
necessitates dealing with qualities of style which are some- 
what intangible. We may set aside at once any supposition 
that Byron stole habitually from the Italian satirists by 
translating their phrases or transferring their ideas, unac- 
knowledged, to his own pages. He was rarely a plagiarist 
in the sense that he conveyed the words of others bodily into 
his own stanzas, and when, as in sections of Don Juan, he 
paraphrased the prose of historians, he frankly admitted 
his obligation. But his creative impulse was likely to be 
affected by any book which had recently aroused his admir- 
ation. Moore, who knew the operations of Byron's 
mind as no one else did, said: — "There are few of his poems 
that might not,''. . . be traced to the strong impulse given 
to his imagination by the perusal of some work that had 

'Letters, v., 70. 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE II7 

just before interested him."' Obviously, when a particular 
poem was composed under such inspiration, we shall find 
it difficult to measure the extent of Byron's dependence 
upon the book which offered him a stimulus. Now and 
then, it is true, there are passages in his satires which recall 
at once similar lines in Italian writers, and occasionally we 
find him using a trick of theirs which it seems improbable 
he could have learned elsewhere : in such cases the relation- 
ship is clear enough. On the other hand, we may feel 
convinced that Byron drew from the Italian satirists some- 
thing of their general tone, and yet be unable to clarify 
our reasons for this behef or to frame them into an effective 
argument. Of such a sort, indeed, is much of the influence 
which Pulci, Bemi, and Casti had on Byron. It is vague 
and evasive, but it undoubtedly exists. Perhaps at bottom 
it is little more than the habit of thinking in a peculiar way 
or of surveying objects from an unusual point of view. But 
whatever is the basis of this satiric manner, it influenced 
Byron's work, and made his later satires almost unique in 
English. 

It is in Beppo, as has been said, that this new mood first 
has full expression. Yet, curiously enough, we are at once 
forced into the paradox that Byron may have been taught 
something of the Italian spirit in Beppo through the medium 
of an English poem, to which he explicitly turns our atten- 
tion. In 1 8 17 a book was published by Murray with the 
odd title, Prospectus and Specimen of an Intended National 
Work, by William and Robert Whistlecraft, of Stowmarket, in 
Suffolk, Harness and Collar Makers, Intended to Comprise the 
Most Interesting Particulars Relating to King Arthur and his 
Round Table. The volume contained only two short cantos 
in ottava rima, the whole making up, with the eleven 
stanzas of introduction, 99 stanzas, exactly the length of 
Beppo. Early in 181 8 two more cantos were added, and 

• Life of Byron, iv., 237. 



Il8 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

in the same year the entire poem was printed as The Monks, 
and the Giants. Although no author's signature was 
attached, credit was rightfully bestowed upon John Hook- 
ham Frere (i 769-1846), already mentioned as a brilliant 
contributor to the poetry of the Anti- Jacobin.'' Like 
Mathias, Roscoe, Rose, and others among his contem- 
poraries, Frere had been an assiduous student of Italian, 
and had read extensively in the Italian romantic and bur- 
lesque poets from Pulci to Casti. It was doubtless interest 
in this literature that led him to the composition of The 
Monks, and the Giants, for which work he borrowed from 
the Italians their octave stanza, an occasional episode, and 
as much of their manner as his nature could absorb.^ 

Byron's finst mention of Beppo occurs in a letter of Octo- 
ber 12, 1817, to Murray: — "I have written a poem (of 84 
octave stanzas), humourous, in or after the excellent man- 
ner of Mr. Whistlecraft (whom I take to be Frere), on a 
Venetian anecdote which amused me."^ On October 23d 
he repeats this assertion : — " Mr. Whistlecraft has no greater 
admirer than myself. I have written a story in 89 stanzas, 
in imitation of him, called Beppo." "^ Although the definite- 
ness of these statements is unquestionable, it is, neverthe- 

' Frere was well known in 18 17 as a prominent London wit. His 
career as a diplomat, which apparently promised him high preferment, 
had been cut short by some unlucky transactions leading to his being 
held partly responsible for the failure of the Peninsular campaign, and 
he had been recalled in 1809 from his position as envoy to Ferdinand 
VII. of Spain. The incident drew upon him Byron's hnes on "blun- 
dering Frere" in some expunged stanzas of Childe Harold, I. Piqued by 
the action of the government and constitutionally inclined to inactivity, 
Frere had since led an indolent and self-indulgent existence as scholar 
and clubman. 

» Dr. Eichler finds that Frere drew something from Aristophanes and 
Cervantes, but more from Pulci, Berni, and Casti. For Frere's indebt- 
edness to the Italians, see Eichler's Frere, 1 15. 

i Letters, iv., 172. * Letters, iv., 176. 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE 119 

less, essential to ascertain just how literally we are to accept 
Byron's confession that Beppo is "in the excellent manner 
of Mr. Whistlecraft." 

The problem has been discussed in detail by Albert 
Eichler in his treatise, John Hookham Frere, Sein Leben und 
seine Werke, Sein Einfluss auf Lord Byron (1905), and his 
conclusions are, in many respects, trustworthy. After 
comparing Beppo with Frere's poem. Dr. Eichler maintains 
that Byron's inspiration may be traced to The Monks, and 
the Giants, and makes the following assertion regarding the 
sources of Byron's work: — "Die Italien duerfen wir als 
Quellen hiebei mit Recht nach des Dichters eigenen Aues- 
serungen und auch aus zeitlichen Gruenden ausschliessen." 
This statement, which is certainly stronger than the evi- 
dence warrants, may be controverted on two grounds: 
first, that, in spite of some superficial resemblances between 
the two poems, there is much in Beppo that Byron could 
not have gained from Frere, indeed which he could have 
learned only from a close study of the Italian poets; sec- 
ondly, that Byron actually knew the work of Casti well at 
the time when he composed Beppo. 

The likeness in stanza form and Byron's own acknowl- 
edgment of his model have, in all probability, been some- 
what over-emphasized. So much do the two works differ 
in plot that there is no single case in which Byron could have 
adopted a situation or an incident from Frere. The story 
of The Monks, and the Giants is told by an imaginary per- 
sonage, Robert Whistlecraft, just as The Waltz is supposed 
to have been composed by the fictitious "Horace Hornem, 
Esq.," and the language of the poem is fitted to the station 
and education of this figure, who is thoroughly British and 
entirely Frere's creation. The poem itself, fragmentary 
and amorphous even in its final state, is a jumble of poorly 
organized themes. Beginning in Canto I with a description 
of Arthur's court and of his three valorous knights. Lance- 



120 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

lot, Tristram, and Gawain, it proceeds to treat in Canto II 
of an attack of the banded Arthurian chivalry on the castle 
of the Giants, a race who resemble, in some respects, the 
giants in Pulci's Alorganic Maggiore. At this point the 
knights disappear from the story, Arthur being mentioned 
only once during the rest of the tale, and Frere, imitating 
in part the first canto of the Morgauie Maggiore, takes a 
monastery for his scene and a siege of the religious brethren 
by the Giants for his main action. Friar John's quarrel 
with the Tintinabularians, his enforced leadership after 
the death of the venerable abbot, the assault of the Giants, 
the successful defence of the Monks, and the eventual 
retreat of the assailing party: — these are the significant 
incidents in the second half of a work which obviously 
depends little on the unity of its plot. 

Beppo is also a narrative, founded on a rather unim- 
pressive anecdote. The merchant, Beppo, departed on a 
trading trip, fails to return to his wife, Laura, and she, 
thinking him dead, consoles herself with a Count for her 
lover. After some years, Beppo comes back, to meet his 
wife and her cavalier at a ball. She is reconciled to her 
husband, the Count becomes Bcpjw's friend, and the story 
ends. Since these main features of the plot differ so widely 
from the incidents in The Monks, and the Giants, we are 
forced to seek, therefore, for similarities in manner and 
style between the two poems. 

Unquestionably the fact that Frere's work was written 
in ottava rima' did affect Byron. It is true that the latter 

' While it is undisputed that the ottava rima is a native Italian 
stanza, its origin has never been satisfactorily determined. That it 
was a common measure before the time of Boccaccio is easily demon- 
strable; but it is equally probable that he, in his Teseide, was the eariiest 
writer to employ it consciously for literary purposes. With him it 
assumed the form which it was to preserve for centuries: eight en- 
decasyllabic lines, rhyming abubabcc. In Pulci's Morgante Maggiore 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE 121 

poet had selected the octave stanza for his Epistle to Augusta, 
composed near Geneva in 1816, before he had entered Italy 
and before Frere's poem had come to his attention ; but the 
Epistle had been serious and romantic, without a touch of 
humor or of satire. Byron had also been familiar with the 
use of the octave stanza in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, and, 
as we shall see, in Casti's Novelle. But of its employment 
in English for humorous purposes there had been few 

it became freer and less dignified, without losing any of its essential 
characteristics. Pulci made ottava rima the standard measure for the 
Italian romantic epic and burlesque, and it was used by men differing so 
greatly in nature and motive as Boiardo, Berni, Tasso, Marino, Tassoni, 
Forteguerri, and Casti. To the Italian language, rich in double and 
triple rhymes, it is especially well suited; and its elasticity is proved by 
its effective employment in both the lofty epic of Tasso and the vulgar 
verse of Casti. 

In English the borrowed ottava rima has had strange vicissitudes. 
Transferred to our literature, along with other Italian metrical forms, 
by Wyatt and Surrey, it was managed by them crudely, but still with 
some success. At least nineteen short poems by Wyatt are in this 
stanza. A typical illustration of its state at this period may be exam- 
ined in Surrey's To His Mistresse. In Elizabethan days the octave had 
a sporadic popularity. Although Spenser made choice of his own inven- 
ted stanza for his Faerie Queen, he tried ottava rima in Virgil's Gnat. 
Daniel in The Civille Warres and Drayton in The Barrens' Warres asso- 
ciated it with tedium and dulness. It was, of course, natural that 
Fairfax, in his fine version of Tasso, should adopt the stanza of his 
original; and Harington translated Ariosto in the same measure, giving 
it, probably for the first time in EngHsh, a little of the burlesque tone 
which was typical of the Italians. Milton, in the epilogue to Lycidas, 
used the octave with reserved stateliness; while Gay, in Mr. Pope's Wel- 
come from Greece, made it a vehicle for quiet merriment. 

During the eighteenth century the predominance of the heroic couplet 
hindered the spread of exotic verse forms — and the octave was still 
exotic. In 1812, WilHam Tennant (1786- 1846), an obscure Scotch 
schoolmaster, revived it in his burlesque epic, Anster Fair, modifying 
the structure by changing the last line to an alexandrine. Then came 
Merivale, Byron, Rose, Procter, and Keats, who settled the measure 
as a standard form in modern English literature. 



122 LORD IJYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VliRSLi: 

exami)les, and Byron made no reference to any such experi- 
ments by li^nj^lish poets. 

In manaKin^ the octave, Frcre had resorted to a some- 
what free and loose versification, diversified by frequent 
run-on lines and many novel rhymes. Pro1)ably this uncon- 
strained metrical structure appealed greatly to Byron; but 
it must be remembered that since 1811 he had been avoiding; 
the heroic couplet and [)ractisin}j; in some less restricted 
measures. In Cliilde Harold he had used a true stanzaic 
form, occasionally with humorous elTect. He had also, 
even in his first pul)lished volume, shown facility in the 
rhvminji of extraordinary words and combinations of syl- 
lables, an art in which he had as guides Butler, Swift, and 
Moore, all of whom were more skilful than I^'^rerc. (Irantinj; 
that Frcre did suggest to Byron the possibility of making 
the octave a colloquial stanza, we cannot escape the conclu- 
sion that the latter went bej-ond his model. For one thing, 
he was less careful about accuracy in rhyming. Eichler, 
after a detailed examination of The Monks, and the Giants 
and Beppo, estimates that in the former poem only one 
rh\'mc out of thirty is humorously inexact, in the latter, 
one (iut of six. Frere's entire work, more than double the 
length of Beppo, has only eleven examples of "two-word 
rhymes," while Beppo has fifty-one. Eichler's tables show 
conclusively that Byron em])loyed for rhymes many more 
foreign words and proper names than Frerc, and that he 
discovered more odd combinations of English words. In 
addition he utilized the enjambcment in a more daring 
fashion. Certainly, in nearly every respect, Byron was 
more lax in his versification than Frerc had bciMi in his." 

Another uncommon feature of The Monks, and the Grants 
is its adoption of a vocabulary drawn from the language of 
every-day life. Whistlecraft, tlu' imaginary author, is, we 

' Fur a (lutailed comparison of the versification of Beppo with tliaL 
of The Montis, and the Giants, see EiclUer's Frere, 170-184. 



Tllb: ITALIAN INFLUENCE 12^ 

are led to understand, a rather talkative bourgeois. In 
fitting his diction to this middle-class artisan, Frere intro- 
duced many expressions which seem unpoetic, and con- 
sciously avoiding any effort at elevated speech, aimed at a 
kind of colloquial talk, illustrated in such contractions as, 
"I '11" and " I 've" and slang phrases like "play the deuce." 
The vigor and picturesqueness of this conversational style 
impressed Byron and doubtless had some influence in lead- 
ing him, in Beppo, to sink into street-jargon, well adapted 
to the tone of his poem. To some extent, as Eichler indi- 
cates, this informal diction coaxed him away from the 
correctness of Pope, and enabled him to give freer rein to 
his shifting moods. 

The fictitious Whistlecraft has a habit, corresponding 
somewhat to a peculiarity of the Italian burlesque poets, of 
digressing from the main thread of the story in order to 
gossip about himself or his opinions. The first lines in the 
poem, 

"I 've often wished that I might write a book 
Such as all English people might peruse,"* 

set a conversational key. The introduction of eleven 
stanzas is devoted to a prefatory monologue, and in the 
body of the work there are digressions in the same vein, 
never long continued, and each in the nature of a brief aside 
to the reader. Sometimes they are merely interpolations 
having reference to the narrator's method: 

"We must take care in our poetic cruise. 
And never hold a single tack too long."^ 

In other cases, they are comments suggested by ;i, turn in the 

' The Monks, and the Giants, Introduction, i. 
' The Monks, and the Giants I., 9. 



124 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

plot. With this feature of The Monks, and the Giants 
Byron was, of course, familiar through his reading in one 
or more of the Italian writers from whom Frere had partly 
borrowed it, and when he adopted it in Beppo, he reverted 
to them rather than to the Englishman. The element of 
digression does not become conspicuous in Frere's poem 
until the last two cantos, which could not have influenced 
Byron in Beppo. ^ Again Frere, who was deficient in 
aggressiveness, had not wished to employ the digression 
as a means of introducing personal satire. Since he himself 
remained anonymous and did not pretend to make his 
poem a polemic, he refused to utilize these opportunities 
for advancing his particular whims or prejudices. Byron, 
however, seeing the possibilities latent in the discursive 
method and recalling its importance in Italian satire, used 
it for the promulgation of his ideas, interesting himself 
more in his chat with the reader than he did in the story. 
In Beppo he constantly wanders from the tale to pursue 
varied lines of thought, returning to the plot more from a 
sense of duty than from desire.^ In these talks with his 

' Dr. Eichler has neglected to notice the important fact that at the 
time of the composition of Beppo, Byron could have been familiar with 
only the first two cantos of The Monks, and the Giants. A brief com- 
parison of dates will establish this point. Cantos I. and II. of Frere's 
poem were published in 1817; Beppo, written in the autumn of 181 7 
{Letters, iv., 172), was sent to Murray on January 19, 1818 {Letters, iv., 
193), and given out for sale on February 28 of the same year. Not until 
later in 1818 were the last two cantos of Frere's work printed, and the 
full edition of four cantos came out some months later. On July 17, 
1818, Byron wrote Murray, "I shall be glad of Whistlecraft," referring 
doubtless to the newly issued complete edition of The Monks, and the 
Giants. 

' Only 36 of the 99 stanzas in Beppo are devoted entirely to the plot. 
The greater portion of the poem is occupied with digressions upon many 
subjects, containing some personal satire, some comment on political 
and literary topics, and much discursive chat upon social life and morals. 
The plot serves only as a frame for the satire. 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE 125 

audience, full of satiric references to English manners 
and morals, and tinctured with mocking observations 
on his contemporaries, Byron follows Casti rather than 
Frere. 

These resemblances in outward form seem to indicate 
along what lines Byron was affected by Frere's poem. The 
differences in spirit and motive between the two men are 
indeed striking. The Monks, and the Giants belongs unmis- 
takably to the burlesque division of satire : it is, said Frere, 
"the burlesque of ordinary rude uninstructed common 
sense — the treatment of lofty and serious subjects by a 
thoroughly common, but not necessarily low-minded man — 
a Suffolk harness maker." ^ The poem is, for the most part, 
satiric only in an indirect and impersonal way, and there is 
in it very little straightforward destructive criticism, like 
that in English Bards. Nor is there any underlying bitter- 
ness or indignation ; it would be futile to seek, in these verses 
so marked by mildness, geniality, and urbanity, for any 
purpose beyond that of amusing, in a quiet way, a cultivated 
circle of friends. Even in the gossipy introduction there are 
few allusions to current events, and if, as has been claimed, 
the knights of the Round Table are intended to represent 
prominent living personages, no one uninitiated could have 
discovered the secret. Frere himself said of it: "Most 
people who read it at the time it was published would not 
take the work in a merely humorous sense; they would 
imagine it was some political satire, and went on hunting 
for a political meaning." When we recall that Byron spoke 
of Beppo as "being full of political allusions,"^ we compre- 
hend the gap which separates the two works. 
^The real divergence between the poems — and it is a wide 
one — is due, as Eichler intimates, to the characters of the 
authors. Whistlecraft's words: — ■ 

• See Memoir of Frere, i., i66. ^ Letters, iv., 193. 



126 l.OKI) ItVKON AS A SAIIUISI IN \ 1 KSP: 

"I 'ni strongly for the present state of thin<::s; 
I look for no reform or innovation,"' 

sunnnari/e i-'reiv's (."onserx'atix'i^ |)Ositic)n. He was a 'I'ory, 
and l^yron was a raciieal. I'^rere approaehed his theme from 
the slanil])()in( of a sehohir; Hyron, from that of a man of 
the world. The former, aetnated by anti(|narian inli-resl, 
bnilt u]) a baek.^round in a fabulous a,m' and look his 
eliaraeters from legend; the latter, in-j^ed by a d(>sire for 
vividness and realitw laid his aetion in a eity whieh he 
knew well and i)laeeil his men and wonu-n in modern limes. 
The Tristram and (lavvain of The Monks, ami the Ciinnts 
ari' puppets and abst raetions; Lam-a and the C\)unl, on 
the- other haml, avc drawn from lifi' and eonst.H]nently si'i-m 
to thr(»b with warmth and pa.s.sion. There are no women 
in {''ri-re's ]H>em who reei-ix'e moi-e than cnu'soi-y nolii-e; in 
Btppo the eenlral (ii^urt- is a woman, and the atmosi)Iu"re 
vibrates with love and intrij^iie. Om- result of these con- 
trasts is that 77/r Monks, and the (iionls, unexceptionable in 
nioralit>-, lac-ks c-haini and is si)mewhat ehastel\' cold; while 
Jicppo, sensuous ;ind frecjiiently sensual, is uc\-er dull. It 
is obvious, then, that the two ])oenis, howexer mueh lliey 
may restinble eaeh other sui)errieially, have fundamentally 
little in eonnnon. 

What, then, did Hyron take from h'rere to substantiate 
his assertion that Hcppo is "in the excellent manner of Mr. 
Whistleeraft "i^ lie may have l(\irned from him some les- 
sons in the manav^enu-nl of the ^^ni;lish octa\-e, i)arlicularly 
as employed in hmnorous verse; he probably acct'iilcd a 
hint eoneerninj; the use of the lan}j;ua};e of i'\i'ry-(l;i\ life; 
and he may have (h-awn a sn<;<^estion as to llu> \ahic of the 
eollo(|uial and discuisi\-e method. In each of these i\>atmcs, 
as we have seen, he siu'passed his pretleeessor. vSpeiilically 
in the matter of direct satire he eotdd have i^'aini-d little 

' J'he Monks, ami the Giants, ill., 59. 



nil'. ITALIAN inm,ii|';n< I', 127 

from I''rcrc, lor the l.-iMcr was hiil a frc\>\v sal i^i^•.l.. I'^iclilcr 
sums ui) Mic l()j.;;ical conclusion: "Die Monhs and Cidnls, 
cine amiK^santc Hurlcskc, li.'ihcn in Bcppo cine nioralischc 
Sal ire j^'czcuK'l."' The s.-mic idea is broufj:ht oul, l)y the 
anonymous wrilci- of a Lcffcr to Lord Hymn, hy John Hull 
(iHjo), in comparinj^' P'rerc's poem wilh Don Jiuin; "Mr. 
Vvvvv vvriles e]eji;anUy, playfully, very like a j;cnllci)ian, 
and a schola,r, and a respectahle man, and Iiis poem never 
sold, nor ever will sell. Your Don Juan, ai^'iin, is wrillcn 
slronjdy, lasciviously, fiercely, 1auj.,'hin^'ly— -and accordinjdy 
ihv Don sells, and will sell, until the end ol lime." In 
habits of nu'nd and in temperanicnl,, Byron was more akin 
to [•'rerc's llalian iiiasl,(M>; than he was to I''i-cre liimj;cir; 
and Ihereforc, in his knowledj.;e of Casti, later of lierni and 
I'ldci, and ])ossil)ly of Ariosto, l*'ortej.;uerri, 'Passoni, and 
l^m-alli,'we shall he more likely lo discover tlie sources of 
ih(! spirit of Beppo and Don Juan. 

Of these men it is probable that (lianibal tisia Casti 
(r72i- 1804) is the nearest conj'.cner of Hyron in llie satiric 
field. 'I'he fact that his work has never been subjected to 
careful scrutiny by critics in either Jta,ly or k^n^'land 
accoimts possibly for the );encral ijj;norin}^ of Casti as an 
inspiration for iJyron's Italian sa,tires.* Tn S|)itcof Iiichler's 
positive statement that the Italians "aus zeitliclien (Iruen- 
den" may be ncj^lccted as sources for Byron's work,-' it is 
certain that Byron had read Casti before he wrote Hrplw; 
for in 1H16 hc! sru'd to Major (lordon, referrinj^ to a, copy of 
Casti's Novella which the latter had presented to him at 
T^russels: "I cannot tell you what a treat your }.',\il of 
('asti has been to uk;: I have >-';ot him almost by heart. T 

' riiclilcr's J'rcre, 184. 

•■ In his Studies in Poetry and Criticism (London, 1905), Clnirlon Col- 
lins pointed out Hyron's indebtedness to Casti, hut incnlioncd oiiiy 
Casti's Novellc. See Collins's volume, pp. 96-9H. 

•' Eiclil<'r's h'rcrr, 163. 



128 LORD BVRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

had read his Aniniali Parlanti, but I think these Novelle 
much better. I lon^ to go to Venice to sec the manners so 
admirably described."* Not until March 25, 1818, does 
he mention Bcrni, and he does not refer to Pulci until 
November, 18 19. There is, then, presumptive evidence for 
maintaininj; that Byron, coming in 1816 or before in con- 
tact \vith the work of Casti, found in him some inspiration 
for the satiric method of Beppo, a method somewhat modi- 
fied in Don Juan after a perusal of Berni and Pulci. 

The Novelle, praised so highly by Byron, consist of 
forty-eight tales in ottava rima, printed together in 
1804, although at least eighteen had been completed 
by 1778. Their author, a sort, of itinerant rhymester,^ 
had acquired notoriety through his attacks on the reign- 
ing sovereigns of Europe, especially on Catharine II, 
whom he had assailed in // Poema Tartaro, a realistic 
and venomous portrayal of Russian society and poHtics, 
containing a violent assault on the Empress. Although 
Casti's poems are now forgotten, their vogue during his 
lifetime was considerable. His greatest work, Gli Animali 
Parlanti, was translated into several languages, including 

' Letters, iv., 217. 

^Born in 1721 in Italy, Casti had been a precocious student at the 
seminary of Montefiascone, where he became Professor of Literature 
at the age of sixteen. In 1764 he moved, with the musician, Guar- 
ducci, to Florence, where he was created Poeta di Corte by the Grand 
Duke Leopold. Here he came to the attention of Joseph II., who invited 
him to Vienna and bestowed upon him several posts of honor. A lucky 
friendship with Count Kaunitz enabled him to visit most of the capitals 
of Europe in company with that Prime Minister's son, and he gained in 
this way an inside knowledge of court life in several countries. In 1778 
he took up his residence in St. Petersburg, where Catharine II. received 
him cordially. Later he returned to Vienna and was crowned Court 
Poet by the Emperor Leopold. The attraction of the French Revolu- 
tion drew him to Paris in 1796, where he lived until his death, February 
16, 1804. 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE 129 

English, and Casti, as an apostle of revolt, was recognized 
as energetic and dangerous. His coarseness and vulgarity, 
however, combined with his slovenly verse structure and 
his neglect of art, prevented him from reaching a high posi- 
tion as a poet, and his literary importance was thus only 
temporary, occasioned principally by the popular interest 
in his timely satiric allusions. He, like Byron, was at heart 
a rebel, and in his own uncultivated way, he anticipated the 
spirit of the English poet. Indeed it is curious how often 
the two pursue the same general plan of attack on their 
respective ages. 

The Novelle Amorose are verse tales of the type which 
Boccaccio, and after him, Bandello, Straparola, and their 
imitators, had made popular in prose. Dealing in a laugh- 
ing and lenient fashion with the indiscretions of gallants, 
usually monks and priests, they are marred by grossness 
and indecency in plot and language. The cynical immor- 
ality of the stories has subjected Casti to much unfavorable 
criticism. Foscolo, his countryman, speaks of him as 
"spitting his venom at virtue and religion, as the sole 
expedient by which he can palliate his own immorality."* 
However, the coarse tone of the Novelle is hardly unique 
with Casti; he is merely adhering to the standard of the 
earlier prose novelists. 

The likeness between Beppo, which is an English novella 
in verse, and some of Casti's Novelle, is one in manner and 
spirit rather than in plot and style. ^ Byron's story, taken 

' Quarterly Review, April, 1819. 

^ Churton Collins, however, makes the statement that "Don Juan 
is full of reminiscences of the Novelle," and points out definite parallel- 
isms between Novella IV., La Diavolessa, and the plot of Don Juan. 
He adds: "To Casti, then, undoubtedly belongs the honour of having 
suggested and furnished Byron with a model for Don Juan." {Studies 
in Poetry and Criticism, pp. 97-98.) It seems probable, however, that 
Byron took even more from // Poema Tartaro than he did from the 



I30 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

as it was from an ci)isodc with wliich he had met in his own 
experience, has no exact |)ar;illel in Casti's collection, but 
his method of handling it is not unlike I hat foliowetl by the 
Italian in treating of themes not greatly dissimilar. Choos- 
ing practically at random among the Noi'cllc for Casti's 
plan was nuu~h llu' sanu- in all we may dist'over certain 
peculiarities whii'h have their counterparts in Brppo. 
Novella IX, I.o S/yirito, has, like Be />/>(), a humorous intro- 
duction, in which tln' narrator, spe.iking, like Hyron, in the 
first person, analyzes what is meant by "spirit" in man or 
woman. He then proceeds with the adventure of the Lady 
Amalia and her two lox'crs, describing each of the three in a 
rather clever character sketch, not imlike the pictures 
which Byron gives of Laura and the Count. The rival 
suitors pm"suc different tactics in their struggles to win the 
lady's favors and in ilwclling on their actions, Casti often 
pauses t(^ indulge in a chuckling aside to the reader, never so 
long continued as Byron's digressions, but in \ery much the 
same vein. 1^'inally one of the wooers meets with success, 
and the talc concludes with a bantering moral. 

Doubtless this summar\- of Lo Splrilo fails to bring out 
any convincing iKirallelisms between it and Bcppo; and it 
must be granted at once that the alleged relatit>nship is 
somewhat elusive. Hut there arc some features connnon to 
the two poems: an easy-going tolerance towards gallantry 
and the social vices; a pretence of taking the reader into 
the author's (.-oulidiMicc; a gcnei\il l.acl'C of formalit\' and 
rigidity in stanza structure; and a witty and bm-lcsciue 
manner of turning phrases. Although one or two of these 
characteristics had ai'pcared singly in n\ron's work before 
l8i8, they had api)earcil in conjmiction in nt) poem of his 
previous to Bcppo, with the possible excei)tion of Tlw 

Novellc. Casti's Cli Atiiniali Parhmti ;uul // Forma Tarlaro arc not 
mentioned in Collins's study. 



TllK ITALIAN INFLUENCE 1^1 

DcviVs Drive, which was not in ottava rima. Obviously 
he could not have learned the secret of this new mood from 
Frere. Thus, when we consider that until liyron's acquain- 
tance with Casti's work, this specific quality of mockery had 
not existed in his satire, we have reason for thinkinj; that 
he was indebted to some extent to the Italian poet. Sonic- 
how the Enj^lish writer, once a prc>lcndcd defender of clean 
morals, began to take a lolcrant attitude towards lapses 
from virtue; he changed Iroin formal and dignified discourse 
to a style easy and colloquial; and he i)artly abandoned 
savage invective for scornful and ironic mockery. In Bcppo 
we realize the full purport of the transformation which had 
been taking place in Byron's satiric mood ever since his 
return from Greece. Credit for this development must be 
given partly to Moore and partly to Frere; but it must be 
assigned even more to Casti, who first ])ut Hyron in loiich 
directly with the Italian binlesque spirit. 

If only the Novclle were considered, however, nyron's 
ol)ligation to Casti would be confined chiefly to Bcppo, for 
in his talcs the Italian seldom leaves his theme, as Byron 
does in Do7t Juan, to aSvSail individuals or institutions. He 
touches lightly on the weaknesses of human nattirc, on the 
frailties and illicit indulgences of full-blooded iiumi and 
women, but he is swayed by no impelling purpose, and he 
wants the fundamental seriousness of the genuine satirist. 
Byron, on the other hand, in Bcppo, and still more in Don 
Juan, never quite forgot the vituperative vigor whitli he 
had shown in Eriii^Ush Bards. 

But before he had seen the Novclle, Byron liad read (Hi 
Animali Parlanti, a mammoth work which, in its sc()])c, in 
its antipathies, and in its manner, has some likeness to Don 
Juan. Published first in Paris in 1802, it was i)irated in a 
London edition a year later, and before long had been trans- 
lated into several languages. An li^nglish version in a 
greatly abridged paraphrase appeared in 1816 under the 



132 LURD UYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

title The Court of Beasts, in seven cantos, without the trans- 
lator's name. ' The same volmne, with revisions and addi- 
tions, was reprinted in 1819 as The Court and Parliament of 
Beasts,— irccly translated, by Wm. St. Rose. 

The Italian poem in three parts and twenty-six cantos 
is written, not, as has been often taken for granted, in the 
ottava rima, but in the less common sesta rima, a stanza 
of six endecasyllabic lines, rhyming ababcc. As its title 
suggests, it is a beast epic, an elaboration of the fables 
of .(^sop and La Fontaine ; but the allegory veils deliberate 
and continuous satire. In his prose preface, Casti explains 
his object as being the presentation, with talking animals 
as actors, of "un quadro generale delle costumanze, delle 
opinioni, e dei pregiudizi dal pubblico adottati, riguardo al 
governo, all' amministrazione ed alia politica degli Stati, 
come delle jxassioni dominanti di coloro, che in certe emi- 
nonti e pubbliche situazionicoUocati si trovano, colorandolo 
con tintc forti, ed alquanto caricate, Ic quali facilmente 
ne relevino I'cxpressione — un quadro in somma della cosa, 
e non delle persone.". Casti, then, planned a comprehen- 
sive satire on his own age, and despite his assertion that his 
poem is "a picture of things, and not of persons," his real 
object was, like Byron's, to "play upon the surface of 
humanity." 

The actual plot of 67/ Animali Parian ti may be briefly 
told. The animals gather to organize a scheme of govern- 
ment, and, deciding on an hereditary monarchy, choose the 
lion for their king. At his death, a regency, headed by the 
lioness, is established for his son, and conspiracy and cor- 
ruption develop. The dog, the first Prime Minister, is 
superseded by the wolf, and becomes a rebel. Civil war 
ensues, and when, at length, all the conflicting parties unite 

' To this work Byron refers in a letter to Murray, March 25, 18 18: 
"Rose's Animali I never saw till a few days ago, — they are excellent." 
{Letters, iv., 217.) 



Till': ITALIAN INFl.UKNCl': JT,T, 

for a confcrtMioc, lhc>- arc destroyed by a torril)le storm. 
This, of course, is the barest outline of the story; the frame- 
work is filled out by arjjiument and criticism by the various 
protagonists, many of whom, notably the do}^, the horse, 
and the bear, represent political factions, conservative, 
moderate, and progressive. No small amoimt of satire 
lies in the actions and speeches of the beasts, who are 
intended to represent different types of humanity; their 
court is a mirror of the courts of western Europe, and the 
abuses which pervade it are those which Casti had seen on 
his travels. The animals are, in all save external appear- 
ances, like men. 

Not enough of a reformer to evolve remedies, Casti was, 
nevertheless, alert in detecting faults in the inert institutions 
of his time and daring in his methods of assailing them. 
His poem, thus, is a hostile picture of ])olitics and society in 
the Europe of the latter half of the eighteenth century, 
painted by a man who had studied his subject from a cos- 
mopolitan standpoint. Gli Ayiimali Parlanti is a radical 
document, designed to expose the flaws in existing systems. 
Even fads and foibles are not beneath its notice. It jeers 
at the academies so popular in Italy in Casti's youth, 
especially the notorious Accademia dell' Arcadia'; it makes 
sport of pedants and antiquaries^; it scorns literary and po- 
litical sycophants-'; it is bitter against theological quibbles, 
against monks,' and against superstitious ])ractices.5 
Throughout it all runs Casti's hatred of despotism, and his 
di.slike of hypocrisy and cant. It is not, indeed, unfair to 
Byron to declare that the scope of Gli Animali Parlanti is, 
in some respects, as broad and comprehensive as that of 
Don Juan. 

It is interesting, as far as the material of Casti's poem is 
concerned, to notice that Casti is an advocate of what were 

' Gli Animali Parlanti, VII., 6 ff. » lUd., III., 37. 

^Ibiil., I II., 3^. * Ibid., XX., 69. 5//>;V/.,XIV.,47;XVI!.,,V, Sf". 



134 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

to be some of Byron's pet theories. For both men Uberty 
is a favorite watchword. The horse, who seems to be spokes- 
man for Casti himself, cries out, 

"Noi d'oi]:ni gioi:;o pria liberi, e sciolti,"' 
an assertion exactly in the spirit of Byron's words, 

"I wish men to be free 
As much from mobs as kiui^s — from you as me."* 

A similar mood led them both to lay an emphasis on the 
seamy and t^ruesome side of war, and to condemn it as 
unnecessary and degrading. Casti, after iiicturinj;- all the 
horrors of a battle-field, exclaims, 

" Crudelissime bestie! O bestie nate 
Per lo sterminio della vostra spezie."^ 

This is in the same tone as Bj^ron's remark about the 
futility of war: 

"Oh, glorious laurel! since for one sole leaf 
Of thine imaginary deathless tree. 
Of blood and tears must flow the unending sea."'' 

Again and again in the two poems we meet with marked 
coincidences in the manifestations of the revolt of the two 
poets against the laws and customs of their respective 
periods. 

Don Juan, moreover, has many of the peculiar methods 
which, partly the product of tradition in Italian burlesque 
poetry, and occasionally the idiosyncrasies of Casti himself, 

' Gli Animali Parlauti, I., 52. ^ Don Juati, X., 25. 

' Gli Animali Parhniti, XVIII., ^t,. * Don Juan VII., 68. 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE 135 

arc used regularly in Gli Animali Parlanti. Casti, Cor 
instance, protests continually in humorous fashion that 
he is dealing only with facts: 

" Poeta son io, non son causidico, 
E mio difctto ^ sol d'esser veridico."* 

His unfailing insistence on this i^oint gives his repeated 
professions an air of stock conventionality. Byron also 
employs this mocking manner of calling attention to the 
verisimiUtude of his own work: 

" My muse by no means deals in fiction ; 
She gathers a repertory of facts."* 

More significant, perhaps, is the colloquial tone which Casti 
habitually adopts towards his readers, turning to them con- 
stantly to speak about himself, his plans, and his difliculties, 
sometimes to ai)ologize, sometimes to make a confession: 

" M'attengo a ci6 chc tocco, a ci6 che vedo, 
Ne mi diverto a far castella in aria."^ 

This sort of intimate gossip is also characteristic of Don 
Juan; indeed Byron has elucidated his theory of procedure: 

"I rattle on exactly as I 'd talk 
With anybody in a ride or walk."* 

At the end of cantos this affectation of taking the pubHc 
into confidence often becomes in Gli Animali Parlanti a 

' Gli Animali Parlanti, IV., 13. 

^ Don Juan, XIV., 13. See also Gli Animali Parlanti, X., i ; XVIIF., 
32, and Don Juan, VII., 26, 41 ; VIII., 124. 

3 Gli Anitnali Parlanti, IV., 73. 

t Don Juan, XV., 19. See also Gli Animali Parlanti, III., 95: VII., 38; 
Don Juan, VI., 8; VIII., 89; The Vision of Judgment, 34. 



136 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

kind of sham humility, coupled usually with the poet's 
promise to return another day, if encouraged. Thus Casti 
closes a canto in this fashion : 

"Ma spossatello omai mi sento e roco, 
Nc in grado piu proseguire il canto, 
Permettetemi dunque, almen per poco, 
Ch'io prenda fiato, e mi riposi alquanto. 
Che poi, qualor vi piaccia, io sard pronto 
A riprendere il fil del mio racconto."' 

There is space for quoting only one of several similar endings 
from Don Juan: 

"But, for the present, gentle reader! and 
Still gentler purchaser! the Bard — that 's I — 
Must, with your permission, shake you by the hand. 
And so — 'your humble servant, and Good-bye!'"^ 

These asides recall the personal paragraphs and short essays 
which Fielding, and after him. Thackeray, were accustomed 
to insert in their novels. Their importance in Don Juan 
cannot be overestimated, for, as it will be necessary to 
emi)hasizc later, the satiric element in that poem is brought 
out chiefly through these digressions, in which the author 
gives free vent to his personality. Some traces of this 
method had a])pcarcd even in the first two cantos of Child e 
Harold^; and. to some degree, it had been utilized in several 
of Byron's short verse epistles to friends. However the 

' Gli Animali Parlanti, IV., 107. 

^ Don Juan, I., 231. See also Gli A nimali Parlanti, XX., 126, and Don 
Juan,JV., 117; v., 159; VI., 120; VII., 35; IX., 85; XV., 98. 

•5 In Childc Harold the digression had been used, not for satire, but 
for personal reminiscences, eulogy, and philosophical meditation; see 
Canto I., 91-92, with its tribute to Wingfield, and Canto I., 93, with its 
promise of another canto to come. 



Till': ITALIAN INFMIRNCK I37 

discursive style is not common in the poet's work before 
Beppo, and after that, at least in his satires, it comes to 
be conspicuous. Even Frere, familiar as he was with the 
Italians, did not realize the full value of the digression until 
he wrote the last two cantos of The Monks and the Giants, 
and, moreover, he never used it as an instrument for satire. 
It is, therefore, reasonable to suppose that Byron found a 
pattern for his procedure in the l)urlesc]ue writers themselves 
and particularly in Casti. There are, however, some vari- 
ations in Byron's employment of this device. He extended 
the colloquial aside until it verjj;ed almost into a prolonged 
monologue or satirical sermon; and whereas Casti, in Gli 
Animali Parlanti, seldom made use of the digression as an 
opportunity for personal satire, Byron im])roved the chance 
to speak out directly, in the first person, against his enemies. 
Casti advanced his destructive criticism largely through his 
narrative, by allusion, insinuation, and irony, in a manner 
quite indirect, keeping himself, as far as open satire was 
concerned, very much in the background. In Don Juan, 
on the contrary, as the poem lengthened into the later can- 
tos, Byron tended more and more to neglect the plot and 
to reveal himself as a commentator on life. 

In many respects, Casti's third poem, // Poema Tarlaro, 
which has never been mentioned in connection with Byron 
and which was never referred to by the English poet, is even 
more closely akin than Gli Animali Parlanti to Don Juan. 
It is possible that it may have offered a suggestion for a 
portion of the plot oiDon Juan — the episode of Catharine II. 
It shows Casti speaking, for once, directly against great 
personages, bestowing upon them fictitious titles, but not 
at any pains to conceal the significance of his allusions. As 
II Poema Tartar o is little known, it is essential to dwell 
somewhat upon its plot and general character. 

The j)oem, which is made up of twelve cantos in ottava 
rima, treats mainly of the Russin of the Empress Catharine 



138 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

II. Most of the important actors are historical figures, 
disguised under pseudonyms: thus Catharine is called 
Cattuna or Turrachina; Potemkin, her famous minister, is 
Toto; and Joseph II, who receives his share of adulation, is 
Orenzebbe. No one of these characters is drawn with any 
effort at secrecy; indeed, in most editions, a complete key is 
provided. 

In its chief features the narrative element of // Poema 
Tar tar o is not unlike that of some sections of Don Juan. 
The hero, a wandering Irishman, Tomasso Scardassale, like 
Juan a child of pleasure and fortune unembarrassed by moral 
convictions, joins a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Even- 
tually he is captured by the infidels, falls into the hands of 
the Caliph of Bagdad, and while a prisoner at his court, 
engages in a liaison with Zelmira, a member of the harem. 
An appointment to the ofifice of Chief Eunuch having been 
forced upon him, he flees with his inamorata and, after 
some escapades, arrives at St. Petersburg, where he has the 
good luck to please the Empress. Soon, without any mani- 
fest reluctance on his part, he occupies the position of 
official favorite, is loaded with money and honors, and 
becomes, for a time, the second highest personage in the 
realm. After various incidents, including a rebellion 
against the empress suppressed only with difficulty, and 
visits of many contemporary monarchs to the capital, 
Potemkin, Catharine's former lover, jealous of Tomasso's 
rise to power, succeeds in bringing about his downfall, and 
the discarded Irishman, suffering the usual penalty of the 
Empress's caprices, is exiled to a far corner of Russia. At 
this point, Casti's poem, becoming prophetic, diverges 
entirely from history. There is an uprising led by the 
Grand Duke; Catharine and Potemkin are seized and ban- 
ished; and the Grand Duke is declared emperor. Some- 
what dramatically the poet describes the meeting between 
the dethroned Catharine and Tomasso. Finally the latter, 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE 139 

recalled to St. Petersburg, dies in the arms of his earlier love, 
Zelmira, and is buried with elaborate ceremony. 

The Catharine II episode in Don Juan begins with Canto 
IX, 42, and ends with Canto X, 48. That, there is' a super- 
ficial resemblance between the adventures of the two heroes, 
Tomasso and Juan, is sufficiently obvious. Both are 
modem picaresque knights at the sport of circumstances. 
Each comes to St. Petersburg from Turkey, bringing with 
him a Turkish girl; each is installed as a favorite at the 
court and attains, at one bound, nobility and riches; each 
falls from his lofty state, and is sent away. It is evident, of 
course, that Byron in no sense borrowed from Casti's plot 
as he did from other writers in his description of the ship- 
wreck. However, since Casti's poem is probably the only 
one of the period dealing with the court of Catharine II, 
and since Byron was well acquainted with the other two 
long works of the Italian, there are grounds for surmising 
that he took // Poema Tartaro, in its general scheme, as a 
model for a part of Don Juan. 

This supposition is strengthened by some resemblances 
in details between the two poems. Catharine II is por- 
trayed by both authors in much the same way. Casti says 
of her that, 

" Per uso e per natura 
Ne' servigi d'amor troppo esigea,"' 

and Byron echoes precisely the same idea : 

"She could repay each amatory look you lent 
With interest, and, in turn, was wont with rigor 
To exact of Cupid's bills the full amount 
At sight, nor would permit you to discount."* 

She is generous to her favorites : Casti makes her confess, 
' // Poema Tartaro, II., 8. ' Don Juan, IX., 62. 



140 LORD JJYKON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

"Amare c prcmiar I'amato ogetto 
Sole d per mc fclicita c diletto,"' 

And Byron refers ]jartieularly to her Kindness: 

"Love had made Catharine make eaeh lover's fortmic."^ 

Tomasso himself is described in language which might apply 
to JiKui : 

" Era grande e hel giovine, — 
Forte, complesso, capel biondo, e un paio 
D'occhi di nobilita pieni e di fuoco; 
Un carattere franco, un umor gaio, 
E colle donne avea sempre un buon giucco."-'' 

The scene in which Tomasso has just been especially 
favored by the Empress and is receiving congratulations 
from courtiers is paralleled by that in which Juan is being 
flattered after a warm greeting by Catharine* Another 
cvirious coincidence occurs in the eflforts of the court phy- 
sician to cure the apparent debility of Tomasso and Juan.'^ 
These similarities are striking enough to furnish some 
probability that Byron was familiar with the plot of // 
Poema Tartaro, and, consciously or unconsciously, repro- 
duced some of its features in Don Juan. 

Casti's satire in this poem, as in GU Animali Parlanti, is 
comprehensive. Like Byron, he ridicules the Russian 
language,^ attacks literary fads, criticises customs-duties,' 

' 11 Poema Tartaro, IV., 76. 

•■ Don Juan, IX., 81. See also Don Juan, IX., 80. 

•> 11 Poema Tartaro, I., 5. 

* See // Poema Tartaro, IV., 54-55, and Don Juan, IX., 82. 

5 See 11 Poema Tartaro, V., 32 ff., and Don Juan, X., 39. 

•■ See 11 Poema Tartaro, VIII., 85, and Don Juan, VII., 14-15. 

' See II Poema Tartaro, III., 81, and Don Juan, III., 20; X., 69. 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE I4I 

and enters into a vigorous denunciation of war. In speak- 
ing of soldiers who clash in civil strife, he says, with bitter 
truth : 

"Non h nobil coraggio e valor vero 
Con queste schiere e quello incontro mena, 
Ma I'impunito di ladron mestiero 
Cui legge alcuna, alcun poter non frcna."' 

Byron makes a charge of the same kind in portraying mer- 
cenary warriors as, 

"Not fighting for their country or its crown, 
But wishing to be one day brigadiers ; 
Also to have the sacking of a town."^ 

The whole of Canto VI in // Poema Tartaro may be com- 
pared with Byron's description of the siege of Ismail in Don 
Juan, VII and VIII. Both scenes are presented with grim 
and graphic realism, without any softening of the horrors 
and disgusting incidents of warfare. 

In // Poema Tartaro, more than in his other productions, 
Casti ventured to resort to genuine personal satire. He 
assailed not only Catharine, but also Potemkin, Prince 
Henry of Prussia, Gustavus III of Sweden, the Sultan of 
Egypt, and the king of Denmark, to mention only figures 
who have a prominent place in history. His method being 
still usually indirect and dramatic, Casti seldom lets him- 
self appear as accuser, but puts criticism of these sovereigns 
into the mouths of his characters, especially Tomasso's 
friend, Siveno, who acts as the favorite's mentor and guide. 
A whole race may arouse Casti's anger — 

"Contro il mogol superbo, e vile 
Mi sento in sen esaltar la bile" — 

' // Poema Tartaro, VI., 98., ^ Don Juan, VII., 18. 



142 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

but he is too wise to let himself be entangled in any contro- 
versy. This discretion does not, necessarily, imply coward- 
ice or fear, for his indirect attacks are often as malignant 
as any of Bj^ron's more direct invectives, and their victims 
cannot be mistaken. Byron, however, always wished to 
meet his enemies face to face, while Casti preferred to reach 
his in a less open way. 

In general, the methods employed in // Poema Tartaro 
are those used in Gli A nimali Parlalti. There arc the same 
short digressions, illustrated in such passages as, 

"Cio di Toto piccar dovea la boria 
E con ragion; ma proseguiam la storia,"^ 

in which the author pulls himself away in order to continue 
his narrative, and which have frequently almost the same 
phraseology as Byron's "Return we to our story." Some- 
times the digressions take the form of philosophical reflec- 
tions on various abstract subjects such as death, mutability, 
or love : 

"Amor, la bella passion che i petti 
Empie si soavissima dolcezza."^ 

We meet often with the familiar insistence on the veracious 
character of the author's writing.^ Irony occurs intermit- 
tently, mingled at times with sarcasm. 

One peculiarity of Casti's manner deserves particular 
attention, although it is not unique with him and is derived 
originally from the earlier burlesque poets. This is his 
habit of shifting the mood from the serious to the ludicrous 
by the use of unexpected phrases. Examples of this sudden 
turn in thought are numerous in // Poema Tartaro. When 

• II Poema Tartaro, VIII., 12. ^ lUd., III., 68. 

3 Ibtd., IV., 69. 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE 143 

the report of rebellion arrives at the Russian cotirt, the 
description of terrible alarm ends with the couplet, 

"Costernata e la corte epicurea 
E venne a Toctabei la diarrea."^ 

The exiled Empress, coming upon her old favorite, Tomasso, 
cries, 

"Ah, non m'inganno no, quegli k Tomasso 
Mel dice il core e lo cognosco al naso."^ 

No reader of Do7i Juan needs to be reminded how often 
Byron cuts short a sentimental passage with a remark which 
makes the entire situation ridiculous. The secret of this 
continual interplay between gravity and absurdity had 
never been mastered by Frere ; undoubtedly it is one of the 
tricks for which Byron was particularly indebted to Casti 
and to Casti 's predecessors, Pulci and Berni. 

Casti's style and language is usually fiat and insipid, 
undistinguished by beauty or rhythm . ' ' His diction, ' ' says 
Foscolo, "is without grace or purity." He is often coarse 
and unnecessarily obscene. These considerations make it 
improbable that Byron could have been affected by Casti's 
poetic style, for, despite the sensuousness of some portions 
of Don Juan, the English poet rarely allowed himself to 
sink into the positive indecencies so common in Casti's 
work. 

On the other hand, the two men are imited by their aims 
and motives. With all that is petty and offensive in Casti's 
satire, there is mingled a real love of Hberty and an unswerv- 
ing haired of despotism. No other poet in English or Ital- 
ian Hterature of the latter eighteenth and early nineteenth 
centuries attempted an indictment of his age, at once so 

' // Poema Tarlaro, VI., 47- ' -^*^'<^-. ^^I-' 79- 



144 LORD UVRON AS A SATIRIST IN VKRSli 

hostile and so comprehensive as those which Casti and 
Byron tried to make. More significant still, Casti, unlike 
Pulci, Bcrni, and Frere, was modern in spirit, and played 
with vital questions in society and government. He was 
close to Byron's own epoch, and the objects of his wrath, as 
far as systems and institutions are concerned, were the 
objects of Byron's satire. Up to a certain point, too, Byron 
followed Casti's methods: he is coUoquiiil, discursive, and 
gossipy; he cares little for plot structure; he employs irony 
and mockery, as well as invective; and he skips, in a single 
stanza, from seriousness to absurdity. The differences be- 
tween the two poets are to be attributed chiefly to the 
Englishman's genius and powerful personality. He was 
more of an egotist than Casti, more vehement, more 
straightforward, more impulsive, and was able to fill Don 
Juan with his individuality as Casti was never able to do 
with Gli Animali Parian ti and // Poenia Tartaro. 

Certain facts in the relationship between Casti and Byron 
seem, then, to be clear. At a i)eriod before the composition 
of Beppo, Byron had read and enjoyed in the original 
Italian, the Novelle and Gli Animali Parlanli. Numerous 
features in Bcppo and Don Juan which resemble charac- 
teristics of Casti's poems had, apparently, existed combined 
in no English work before Byron's time. In addition, inter- 
nal evidence makes it a possibility that Byron was familiar 
with // Poema Tartaro, and that he borrowed from it some- 
thing of its material and its spirit. The probability is that 
Byron was influenced, to an extent greater than has been 
ordinarily supi)osed, by the example and the methods of 
Casti. 

Byron's acquaintance with Pulci and Berni did not, 
apparently, begin until after the publication of Beppo. On 
March 25, 1818, he wrote Murray, in speaking of Beppo: 
" Berni is the original of all — Berni is the father of that kind 
of writing, which, I think, suits our language, too, very 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE I45 

well."' On February 21, 1820, while he was busy with his 
translation of Pulci's Morgante Maggiore, he said of Pulci's 
poem, to Murray: "It is the parent, not only of Whistle- 
craft, but of all jocose Italian poetry."^ These assertions 
indicate that Byron classed Beppo and Don Juan with the 
work of the Italian burlesque writers, eventually coming 
to recognize Pulci as the founder of the school. 

Luigi Pulci (1432-1484), a member of the literary circle 
which gathered at the court of Lorenzo de' Medici in the 
latter half of the sixteenth century and which included, 
among others, Poliziano, Ficino, and Michelangelo, com- 
posed the Morgante Maggiore, "the first romantic poem of 
the Renaissance." Designed probably to be read or recited 
at Lorenzo's table, it was finally completed in February, 
1483, as a poem in ottava rima, containing twenty-eight 
cantos and some 30,000 lines. ^ Although the plotting and 
consummation of Gan's treason against Charlemagne lends 
a crude unity to the romance, it is actually a series of bat- 
tles, combats, and marvellous adventures loosely strung 
together. The titular hero, Morgante, dies in the twentieth 
canto. The matter^is that of the Carolingian legend, now so 
well-known in the work of Pulci's successors. 

Historically, as the precursor of Berni, Ariosto, and the 
other singers of Carolingian romance, Pulci occupies the 
position of pioneer. For our purposes, however, the vsigni- 
ficance of his work lies less in the incidents of his narra- 
tive, the greater part of which he purloined, than in the 
poet's personality and the transformation which his gro- 
tesque and fanciful genius accompUshed with its material. 

' Letters, iv., 217. " Letters, iv., 407. 

3 In structure, the Morgante Maggiore, is made up of the rijacimenli 
of two earUer works: one, the Ortando, rather commonplace and mono- 
tonous in tone, was the basis of the first twenty- three cantos; the other. 
La Spagna, in prose, loftier and more stately, gave a foundation for the 
last five cantos. 



146 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

Through much humorous and ironic digression, through 
some amusing interpolated episodes, through a balancing 
of the serious and the comic elements of the story, through a 
style popular in origin and humorous in effect, and through 
the creation of two new characters, the giant Margutte and 
the demon Astarotte, he made his poem a reflection of his 
own bourgeois individuality, clever, tolerant, and irrepres- 
sible in its inclination to seize upon the burlesque possi- 
bilities in men or events. 

That the Morgante Maggiore is a burlesque poem is due 
not so much to dehberate design on Pulci's part as to the 
unconscious reflection of his boisterous, full-blooded, yet 
at the same time, meditative nature. It is unwise to attri- 
bute to him any motive beyond that of amusing his audience. 
In spite of its apparent irreverence, the Morgante was pro- 
bably not planned as a satire on chivalry or on the church, 
Pulci — "the lively, affecting, hopeful, charitable, large- 
hearted Luigi Pulci," as Hunt called him — was at bottom 
kindly and sympathetic, and his work displays a robust 
geniality and good-humor which had undoubtedly some 
influence on Don Juan. We rarely find Pulci in a fury; 
at times his merriment is not far from Rabelaisian, however 
always without a trace of indignation, for his levity and 
playfulness seem genuine. This very tolerance is perhaps 
the product of Renaissance skepticism, which viewed both 
dogmatism and infidelity with suspicion. Deep emotion, 
tragedy, and pathos are all to be met with in the Morgante, 
but each is counter-balanced by mockery, comedy, or 
realism. It is this recurring antithesis, this continual intro- 
duction of the grotesque into the midst of what is, by itself, 
dignified and serious, that is the distinctive peculiarity of 
Pulci's manner. The mere turn of a phrase makps a situa- 
tion absurd. There is no intensity about this Florentine; 
he espouses no theories and advocates no creeds ; he is con- 
tent to have his laugh and to set others chuckling. 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE I47 

This summary may be of service in suggesting one reason 
why, in the later cantos of Do7i Juan, we sometimes are met 
with a tolerance almost sympathetic, widely differing from 
the passionate narrowness of English Bards. Pulci, unlike 
Byron, was not a declared satirist ; his theme was in the past, 
steeped in legend and myth; but something of his spirit, 
difficult to analyze as that spirit may be, tempered and 
modified the satire of the older Byron. 

Byron's first definite reference to Pulci occurs in a portion 
of Don Juan written in November, 1819: 

"Pulci was sire of the half-serious rhyme, 
Who sang when chivalry was not Quixotic, 
And revelled in the fancies of the time. 
True knights, chaste dames, huge giants. Kings despotic. "^ 

However, Don Juan, III, 45, presenting a possible parallel- 
ism with the Morgante, XVIII, 115, would indicate that 
Byron was familiar with Pulci 's poem at least some months 
before.^ On February 7, 1820, he wrote Murray: "I am 
translating the first canto of Pulci 's Morgante Maggiore, 
and have half done it."^ In speaking of the completion of 
the translation, of which he was very proud, he told Murray, 
February 12, 1820: "You must print it side by side with 
the original Italian, because I wish the reader to judge of 
the fidelity ; it is stanza for stanza, and often line for line, if 
not word for word.""* In the Preface to the translation, 

' Don Juan, IV., 6. 

^ It is probable that Byron had read Merivale's poem, Orlando in 
Roncesvalles (1814), for in the advertisement to his translation of Pulci 
he refers to "the serious poems on Roncesvalles in the same language 
[English]«;-and particularly the excellent one of Mr. Merivale." Meri- 
vale's work, based though it is upon the Morgante, is without humor, 
and could have given Byron nothing of the spirit of Pulci. 

3 Letters, iv., 402. 1 Letters, iv., 407. 



148 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

printed with it in The Liberal, July 30, i8'23, Byron uttered 
his final word on the Italian writer: "Pulci may be re- 
garded as the precursor and model of Berni altogether . . . 
He is no less the founder of a new style of poetry lately 
sprung up in England. I allude to that of the ingenious 
Whistlecraft." It is evident, then, that Byron estimated 
Pulci's work very highly, that he was acquainted, probably, 
with the entire Morgante Maggiore and had studied the 
first canto, at least, in detail, and that he considered him 
the original model of Berni and Frere. 

It remains to point out specific qualities in manner and 
style which link the two poets together.' Towards the 
narrative portion of the Morgante, Byron seems to have been 
indifferent. In Don Juan there is but one clear allusion to 
the Carolingian legend : 

"Just now, enough; but bye and bye ^ '11 prattle 
Like Roland's horn in Ronccsvalles' battle."^ 

There is a fairly close parallel already pointed out between 
the response of a servant to Lambro in Don Juan, III, 45, 
and Marguttc's speech in the Morgante, XVIII, 1 15. There 
are, however, no other incidents in Don Juan which resemble 
any part of the earlier poem. 

Pulci's realism, a quality which is usually in itself bur- 
lesque when it is applied to a romantic subject, is shown in 
his fondness for homely touches and minute details, in his 
use of words out of the street and proverbs from the lips of 
the populace. The interjection of the lower-class spirit into 

' Cantos III. and IV. of Don Juan were written in the winter of 1819- 
1820, while Byron was at work on his translation of the Morgante; hence 
it is certain that the influence of Pulci may be looked for at least as early 
as Canto III. It is probable, moreover, that Byron became acquainted 
with Pulci's work before, or soon after, the beginning of Don Juan in 
September, 1818. ' Don Juan, X., 87. 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE 



149 



the poem helped to make the Morgante in actuality what 
Frere had tried to produce in The Monks, and the Giants — 
a treatment of heroic characters and deeds by a bourgeois 
mind. The spectacle of the common vulgar details in the 
every-day life of men supposedly great naturally somewhat 
degrades the heroes. When Byron portrays General 
Suwarrow as 

"Hero, buffoon, half-demon, and half-dirt,"^ 

he is following the methods of Pulci, who made his giants 
gluttons and his Rinaldo a master of Billingsgate.^ In 
the Morgante warriors are continually being put into 
ludicrous situations: Morgante fights his battles with a 
bell-clapper; Rinaldo knocks a Saracen into a bowl of 
soup 3; and the same noble, turned robber, threatens to steal 
from St. Peter and to seize the mantles of St. Ursula and 
the 'Angel Gabriel.'' Pulci compares Roncesvalles to a pot 
in much the same spirit that Byron likens a rainbow to a 
black eye.^ Pulci is fond of cataloguing objects, especially 
the varieties of food served at banquets; and Byron shows 
the same propensity in describing in detail the viands pro- 
vided for the feast of Haidee and Juan, and the dinner at 
Norman Abbey. Pulci's realism is also manifest in his use 
of slang and the language of low life. In this respect, too, 
Byron is little behind him: Juan fires his pistol "into one 
assailant's pudding"; slang phrases are frequently intro- 
duced into Don Juan, and elevated poetic style is made more 
vivid by contrast with intentionally prosaic passages. 

Another peculiarity of Pulci is his tendency to make use 
of many Tuscan proverbs and to coin sententious apothegms 
of his own. The framework of the octave lends itself easily 

' Don Juan, VII., 55. * Morgante Maggiore, XIV., 7. 

3/6td., III., 51. ^ Ibid., XI., 21. 

5 Don Juan, II., 92. 



150 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

to compact maxims in the final couplet, and perhaps it is 
due to this fact that Don Juan and the Morgante are both 
crammed with epigrams. In Pulci's poetry one meets on 
nearly every page with such apt sayings as 

"La fede e fatta, come fa il soUetico"' 

and 

"Co' santi in chiesa, e co' ghiotti in taverna."^ 

One example out of the many in Don Juan will suffice for 
quotation : — 

"Adversity is the first path to truth." ^ 

Possibly the fact that the Morgante was first recited to 
the members of Lorenzo's circle is chiefly responsible for 
Pulci's habit of turning often to his listeners, inviting them, 
as it were, to draw nearer and share his confidence. Thus 
he confesses: 

" Non so se il vero appunto anche si disse; 
Accetta il savio in fin la veria gloria; 
E cosi seguirem la nostra storia."'' 

Byron speaks repeatedly in this sort of mocking apology : 

"If my thunderbolt not always rattles. 
Remember, reader! you have had before. 
The worst of tempests and the best of battles. "^ 

Both poets assume, at times, an affected modesty: thus 
at the very end of the Morgante Pulci asserts that he is not 
presumptuous : 

' Morgante Maggiore, XVIII., 117. ^ Ibid., XVIII., 144. 

3 Don Juan, XII., 50. ^ Morgante Maggiore, XXIV., 83. 

s Don Juan, XII., 88. 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE I5I 

"lo non domando grillanda d'alloro, 
Di che i Greci e i Latini chieggon corona . . . 
Anzi non son prosuntuoso tanto, 
Quanto quel foUe antico citarista 
A cui tolse gia Apollo il vivo ammanto ; . . . 
E cio ch' io penso coUa fantasia, 
Di piacere ad ognuno e '1 mio disegno."' 

So Byron refers to his own lack of ambition: 

"I perch upon an humbler promontory, 
Amidst Life's infinite variety; 
With no great care for what is nicknamed Glory. "^^ 

At the end of nearly every canto of the Morgante is a promise 
of continuation, so phrased as to seem conventional: e. g., 

"Come io diro ne I'altro mio cantare." 

The same custom became common with Byron, in such 
lines as, 

"Let this fifth canto meet with due applause, 
The sixth shall have a touch of the sublime." ^ 

There is, however, one important distinction between the 
two poets in their use of the digression : Pulci employs it for 
cursory comment on his story, or for chat about himself; 
Byron utiHzes it not only for these purposes, but also for 
the expression of satire. It is in his digressions that he 
speaks out directly against individuals, institutions, and 
society in general. The Morgante is a tale, with an occa- 
sional remark by the author; Don Juan is a monologue, 
sustained by a narrative framework. 

Pulci's comparison of his poetry to a boat is introduced 

' Morgante Maggiore, XXVIII., 138-9. -' Don Juan, XV., 19. 

3 76z(/., v., 159. 



T52 LORD IIYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

SO frcciiicntly that it may possibly have suggested the figure 
to Byron. A tyincal instance of its usage may be quoted 
in the lines: — 

" lo me n'andro con la barchetta mia, 
Quantx) I'acciua comporta un picciol legno."' 

Byron's employmenl of the metaphor is also somewhat 
frequent: — 

"At the least I have shunned the common shore, 
And leaving land far out of sight, would skim 
The Ocean of Eternity : the roar 
Of breakers has not daunted my slight, trim, 
But still seaworthy skiff; and she may float, 
Where ships have foundered, as doth many a boat. "^ 

It should be added that the brief "grace before meat," 
so a])parently truely devotional in ])hraseology, which Pulci 
prefixed to each of liis cantos, and the ecjually orthodox 
ejnlogues in which he gave a benediction to his readers, are 
his own i)eculiarity, borrowed unquestionably from the 
street improvisatori. There is nothing corresponding to 
them in Don Juan. 

lk)th Fulci and Hyron were men of \\'\(\c reading, and not 
averse to (lisi)la\'ing and mailing use of their information. 
Pulci treats the okler poets without reverence: he quotes 
Dante's "do]30 la dolorosa rotta" without acknowledgment^; 
he burlest]ues the famous phrase about Aristotle by having 
Morgante call Margutte "il UKCstro di color che sanno"; 
and he alludes Lo Petrarch with a wink: — 

' Other examples occur in the Morji^autc Mosmiorc, I., 4; 11., i; XIV., 
i;XVl., i.XXl., 1; XXIV., liXXVin., I. 

■■ Don Juan, X., 4. •' Morgante Maggiorc, 1., 8. 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE I53 

"O sommo amore, o nuova cortesia! 
Vedi che forse ognun si crede ancora, 
Che questo verso del Petrarca fa: 
Ed e gia tanto, e' lo disse Rinaldo ; 
Ma chi non ruba e chiamato rubaldo. "' 

This recalls Byron's exhortation at the end oi Don Juan, I, 
when, after quoting four lines from Southey, he adds: 

"The first four rhymes are Southey's every line: 
For God's sake, reader! take them not for mine." 

In a similar way Byron gives four lines from Campbell's 
Gertrude of Wyoming, and comments upon them in Don 
Juan, I, 88-89. 

This discussion would be incomplete if it did not mention 
Pulci's fondness for philosophical reflection, meditations on 
life and death, on joy and sorrow, Volpi has attempted to 
demonstrate that Piilci, like many so-called humorists, was 
really, under the mask, a sad man. In making good this 
thesis he takes such lines as these as indicative of Pulci's 
true attitude towards the problems of existence : — 

' ' Questa nostra mortal caduca vista 
Fasciata e sempre d'un oscuro velo; 
E spesso il vero scambia alia menzogna; 
Poi si risvegha, come fa chi sogna."^ 

However this may be, it is certain that Pulci, in his more 
thoughtful moods, inclined to pessimism and intellectual 
scepticism. 

"Pulci's versification," says Foscolo, "is remarkably 
fluent; yet he is deficient in melody." Another critic, the 
author of the brief note in the Parnaso Italiano, mentions 

' Morgante Maggiore, XXV., 283. ^ Ibid., XXVIII., 35- 



154 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

his rapidity and his compression: "Tu troverai pochi poeti, 
che viaggino so velocemente, come il Pulci, il qualo in otti 
versi dice spesso piu di otte cose. " For this fluency and its 
corresponding lack of rhythm, the conversational tone of 
the Morgante is largely responsible. The many colloquial 
digressions and the use of common idioms hinder any ap- 
proach to a grand style. Pulci's indifference to the strict 
demands of metre, his employment of abrupt and discon- 
nected phrases, and his frequent sacrifice of melody to vigor 
and compactness, are also characteristic of Byron's method 
in his Italian satires. Although Don Juan contains some 
of Byron's most musical passages, it nevertheless gives the 
impression of having been, like the Morgante, composed for 
an audience, the speaker being, perhaps, governed by rough 
notes, but tempted from his theme into extemporaneous 
observations, and caring so little for regularity or unity of 
structure that he feels no compunction about obeying the 
incUnation of the moment. It is not without some acute- 
ness that he alludes to, 

" Mine irregularity of chime, 
Which rings what 's uppermost of new or hoary, 
Just as I feel the Improvvisatore.'"^ 

Specifically in the field of satire, Pulci's work, important 
though it was in some features of style and manner,^ 
exercised its greatest influence on Byron's mood. The 
chastening effect of Byron's life on his poetic genius had 
made him peculiarly receptive to the spirit of Pulci's poem; 

' Don Juan, XV., 20. 

' It is significant that Byron was able to make his translation of the 
first canto of the Aforgante so faithful to the original. On September 
28, 1820, he wrote Murray: — "The Pulci I am proud of; it is superb; 
you have no such translation. It is the best thing I ever did in my life " 
(Letters, i., 83). It is obvious that there were features in Pulci's style 
which appealed to Byron. 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE 155 

and accordingly the Italian poet taught him to take life and 
his enemies somewhat less seriously, to be more tolerant 
and more genial, to make playfulness and humor join with 
vituperation in his satire. Byron's satiric spirit, through his 
contact with Pulci, became more sympathetic, and there- 
fore more universal. 

To Berni, whom he, at one time, considered to be the 
true master of the ItaHan burlesque genre, Byron has few 
references. We have seen how he was induced to revise his 
first opinion and to recognize in Pulci "the precursor and 
model of Berni altogether." In the advertisement to the 
translation of the Morgante he asserted that Berni, in his 
rifacimento, corrected the "harsh style" of Boiardo. These 
meagre data, however, furnish no clue to the possible in- 
fluence of Berni's work upon Don Juan. 

Francesco Berni (i496?-i535)' is important here chiefly 
because of his rifacimento, or revision, of Boiardo's Orlando 
Innamorato. In accomplishing this task he completely 
made over Boiardo's romance by refining the style, poHshing 
the verse-structure, inserting lengthy digressions of his own 
and following a scheme instituted by Ariosto, prefacing 
each canto with a sort of essay in verse. Berni's purpose, 
indeed, was to make the Innamorato worthy of the Furioso. 
His version, however, owing probably to the malice of some 
enemy, has reached us only in a mutilated form. As it 
stands, nevertheless, it possesses certain features which 
distinguish it from the work of Pulci on the one hand and 
that of Casti on the other. 

The influence which Berni may have had on Byron's 

' Berni was a priest, who became, with Molza, La Casa, Firenzuola, 
and Bini, a member of the famous Accademia della Vignajuoli in Rome, 
in which circle he was accustomed to recite his humorous poetry. He 
died under suspicious circumstances, perhaps poisoned by one of the 
Medicean princesses. He was the bitter enemy of Pietro Aretino, the 
most scurrilous satirist of the age. 



1^6 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VKRSE 

satires comes mainly from two features of the former's work : 
his introductions to separate cantos, and his admirable 
style and versification. It was Bemi's habit to soliloquize 
before beginning his story : thus Canto IX of the Innanwrato 
commences with a philosophical disquisition on the un- 
expected character of most human misfortunes, leading, by a 
natural step, to the plot itself. So, in Don Juan, only one 
canto — the second — begins with the tale itself; every other 
has a preliminary discussion of one sort or another.^ It 
was also Bemi's custom to take formal leave of his readers 
at the end of each canto, and to add a promise of Iwhat was 
to come.- This habit, all but universal with the Italian 
narrative poets, Byron followed, although his farewell occurs 
sometimes even before the very last stanza. A typical 
example may be quoted: 

"It is time to ease 
This Canto, ere my Muse perceives fatigue. 
The next shall ring a peal to shake all people, 
Like a bob-major from a village steeple."^ 

Bemi's style and diction are far superior to Pulei's. 
Count Giammaria Mazzuchelli, in the icdition of Berni in 
Classic i Italiani, says of this feature of liis work: "La, 
facilita della rima congitmta alia naturallezza dell' espres- 
sione, e la vivacita de' pensicri degli scherzi uniti a singolare 
coltura nello stile sono in lui si maravigliose, che viene egli 
considerate come il capo di si fatta poesia, la quale percio 
ha presa da lui la denominazione, e suol chimarsi Bernesca. " 

■ See, Don Juan, XII., 1-22, with its discussion of avarice. 
^ See, for example, the Innamorato, II., 70: 

"Ma s'io dicesse ogni cosa al presente 

Da dire un' altra volta non aria; 

Pero tornate, e s'attenti starete, 

Scmpre piu belle cose sentirete." 
i Don Juan, VII., 85. 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE 157 

He alone of the three Itahan burlesque writers considered, 
succeeded in creating a masterpiece of literary art/ In 
this respect, then, his influence on Byron may have been 
salutary. 

Henri Beyle (1783-1842), the self-styled M. Stendhal, is 
responsible for the theory, since repeated by other critics, 
that Byron's Italian satires owe much to the work of the 
Venetian dialect poet, Pietro Buratti (1772-1832). When 
Beyle was with Byron in Milan in November, 1816, he 
heard Silvio Pellico speak to Byron of Buratti as a charming 
poet, who, every six months, by the governor's orders, paid 
a visit to the prisons of Venice. Beyle's account of the 
ensuing events runs as follows: "In my opinion, this 
conversation with Silvio Pellico gave the tone to Byron's 
subsequent poetical career. He eagerly demanded the 
name of the bookseller who sold M. Buratti's works; and 
as he was accustomed to the expression of Milanese blunt- 
ness, the question excited a hearty laugh at his expense. 
He was soon informed that if Buratti wished to pass his 
whole life in prison, the appearance of his works in print 
would infalHbly lead to the gratification of his desires; and 
besides, where could a printer be found hardy enough to run 
his share of the risk? — The next day, the charming Con- 
tessina N. was kind enough to lend her collection to one of 
our party. Byron, who imagined himself an adept in the 
language of Dante and Ariosto, was at first rather puzzled 
by Buratti's manuscripts. We read over with him some of 
Goldoni's comedies, which enabled him at last to compre- 
hend Buratti's satires. I persist in thinking, that for the 

' Many characteristics of the Innamorato, however, are Uke those of 
the work of Pulci and Casti. There are the same equivocal allusions 
and obscenities, the same pervasive skepticism and pessimism, and the 
same colIo(|uiaI style that are to be met with in the Morgante and the 
Novelle. Berni was perhaps greater as a craftsman and artist, but other- 
wise had the virtues and the faults of the other burlesque poets. 



158 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

composition of Bcppo, and subsequently of Don Juan, 
Byron was indebted to the reading of Buratti's poetry."' 

A statement so plain by a man of Beyle's authority 
deserves some attention. The first question which arises 
in connection with his assertion is naturally, what work 
Buratti had done before 181 7, when Byron began the 
composition of Beppo.^ After a dissipated boyhood, 
Buratti had become a member of the Corte dei Busoni, a 
pseudo-Academy which devoted its attention chiefly to 
satire. Although he was the author of several early lam- 
poons, his first political satire was recited in i8i3amonga 
party of friends at the home of Counsellor Galvagna in 
Venice. It is, in substance, a lamentation over the fate of 
Venice, with invective directed against the French army of 
occupation; Malamani styles it "a masterpiece of subtle 
sarcasm. " Eventually, through the treachery of apparent 
friends, the verses came to French ears, and Buratti was 
imprisoned for thirty days, his punishment, however, being 
somewhat lightened by powerful patrons. Shortly after 
this episode, he circulated some quatrains of a scurrilous 
nature on Filippo Scolari, a pedantic youth who had criti- 
cised contemporary literary men in a supercilious way. 
For these insults, Scolari tried to have Buratti apprehended 
again, but the latter, although he was forced to sign an 
agreement to write no more satires, received only a repri- 
mand. During this period he had also directed several 
pasquinades at an eccentric priest, Don Domenico Mari- 
enis, who seems to have been a general object of ridicule 
in Venice. 

Such, according to Malamani, was the extent of Buratti's 
work up to 1 8 16. His masterpiece, the Sloria delV Elefante, 

' Letters, iii., 444-445. 

* Buratti's career is treated at length in Vittorio Malamani's mono- 
graph, II Principe dei satirici Veneziani (1887). An edition of his 
poetry, in two volumes, was printed in 1864. 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE 159 

was not written until 1819, too late to have been a strong 
influence even on Don Jimn. Of this early satiric verse, no 
one important poem was composed in ottava rima. The 
poems, all short and of no especial value as literature, used 
the Venetian dialect, as far removed from pure Tuscan as 
Scotch is from English. Their most noticeable character- 
istic is their prevailing irony, a method of satire of which 
Byron only occasionally availed himself. With these facts 
in mind, and with the additional knowledge that Byron was 
unquestionably influenced by the burlesque writers, it is 
improbable that Beyle's theory deserves any credence. 
Beyle has made it clear that Byron, at one time, read 
Buratti's work with interest; but he has failed to show how 
the English poet could have acquired anything, either in 
matter or in style, from the Italian satirist.^ 

Of other Italian poems sometimes mentioned as possibly 
contributing something to Don Juan, no one is worth more 
than a cursory notice. La Secchia Rapita, by Tassoni 
(1565-1635), is a genuine mock-heroic, the model for 
Boileau's Lutrin and, to some extent, for Pope's Rape of the 
Lock. So far as can be ascertained, Byron has no reference 
either to the author or to his poem; and since La Secchia 
Rapita preserves consistently the grand style, applying it to 

' Buratti's after-life brought him once into relation with Byron. On 
the birth of a son to Hoppner, the British Consul at Venice, Byron pre- 
sented the father with a short madrigal : — 

"His father's sense, his mother's grace, 
In him, I hope, will always fit so; 
With — still to keep him in good case — 
The health and appetite of Rizzo." 

The Count Rizzo Pattarol, named in the last line, had the verses trans- 
lated into several languages, in the Italian version changing the word 
"appetite" to "buonomore." This piece of vanity so excited the mirth 
of Buratti that he commemorated the affair in an epigram. Byron, 
however, seems to have paid no attention to the incident. 



l6o LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

trivial subjects, it has little in common with Byron's 
satires. ^ 

With // Ricciardetto, by Forteguerri (1675-1735), Byron 
was better acquainted. Indeed Foscolo, without gi\'ing 
proof for his conclusion, suggested that it might have offered 
some ideas to the English writer. The Italian poem, com- 
pleted about 1 71 5, after having been composed, according 
to tradition, at the rate of a canto a day, contains thirty 
cantos in ottava rima. It is an avowed burlesque, in 
which heroes of Carolingian romance are degraded to buf- 
foons, Rinaldo becoming a cook and Ricciardetto a barber. 
In it, as Foffano says, "the marvellous becomes absurd, the 
sublime, grotesque, and the heroic, ridiculous." Forte- 
guerri's design, however, was not directly satiric, and he was 
seldom a destructive critic. His mission was solely to 
divert his readers. Byron refers to Lord Glenbervie's 
rendering of the first canto of // Ricciardetto (1822) as most 
amusing,^ but he seems to have had no great interest in the 
original, 

A point has now been reached where it is practicable to 
frame some generalizations as to the extent and nature 



^ There is less of the mock-heroic in Don Juan than is ordinarily 
supposed. It has Httle in common with the classical Mock-Epic, repre- 
sented in Enghsh by the Dmiciad, the Scribleriad, and the Dispensary, 
poems which use the epic machinery of gods and goddesses, ridiculing 
the manner of the Greek and Roman epics through the method of 
parody. Don Juan, on the other hand, is unrelated to the work of 
either Homer or Virgil. Nor does it burlesque the Italian epics: its 
characters, modern and unconventional as they are, are not, even in a 
humorous sense, heroic, and the matter dealt with is borrowed from 
none of the ItaUan romances. The fact that exalted emotions are made 
absurd, or that fine feelings are jeered at does not warrant us in classing 
Don Juan with the mock-heroic poems. Indeed, the mere absence of 
the typical addresses to the Muse — they occur only twice in Don Juan 
(II., 7; III., i) — indicates that Byron did not imitate the epic form. 

^ Letters, vi., 50. 



THE ITALIAN INFLUENCE l6l 

Of Byron's indebtedness to the Italians. For his subject- 
matter, he owed them something. The Catharine II 
episode m Don Juan may have been suggested by // Poema 
iartaro; an occasional unimportant incident or situation 
may have been taken or modified from the work of Casti or 
l^ulci. On the whole, however, Byron's material was either 
origmal or drawn from other sources than the Italians. 
H^ven though Byron and Casti so frequently satirize the 
same institutions and theories, it is improbable that this is 
more than coincidence, the result of the natural opposition 
which similar abuses aroused in men so alike in tempera- 
ment and intellect. 

In his manner, however, Byron was profoundly affected 
so mucn so that his own statement about 5^^/>o— "The 
style IS not EngHsh, it is Itahan"-^ is in exact accordance 
with the impression which Beppo, as well as Don Juan 
makes on the reader. He learned, in part from Casti,' 

1 r}""""^ ^''"^ ^^^ ^^^^^' ^he use of the burlesque 
method; he adopted their discursive style, with its oppor- 
tunities for digression and self-assertion, and made it a 
channel for voicing his own beliefs as well as for speaking 
out against his enemies. Accepting the hint offered by 
their tendency to colloquial speech, he lowered the tone of 
his diction and addressed himself often directly to his 
readers. Moreover, he acquired the habit of shifting 
suddenly from seriousness to absurdity, from the pathetic 
to the grotesque, in the compass of a single stanza His 
wrath, at first untempered, was now softened by a new 
attitude of skepticism which turned him more to irony and 
mockery than to violent rage. 

In utilizing the octave for his own satires, he gave it a 
freedom of which it had never before been made capable in 
English; and, by a clever employment of double and triple 
rhymes, and by the constant use of run-on lines and stanzas, 

' Letters, W., 217. 



l62 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

he adjusted the measure to the conversational flow of his 
verse. 

At a time, then, when his youthful narrowness was 
developing into the maturity that comes only from experi- 
ence, and when, therefore, he was most susceptible to broad- 
ening influences, Byron, fortunately for his satire, was 
brought into contact with the Italian spirit. The result 
was that Don Juan joined many of the most powerful 
features of English Bards with the lighter elements of Berni 
and Casti. 

The beauty of Byron's satire at its finest in Don Juan and 
The Vision of Judgment, lies in the welding of the direct 
and indirect methods, in the interweaving of invective with 
burlesque, in such a way that the poems seem to link the 
spirit of Juvenal with the spirit of Pulci. The consequence 
is a variety of tone, a widening of scope, and a considerable 
increase in effectiveness. Byron's general attacks are re- 
lieved from the charge of futility; his vindictiveness is 
mitigated by humor and a touch of the ridiculous; and his 
aggressiveness, though it does not disappear, is sometimes 
changed to a cynical tolerance. 



CHAPTER VIII 
"don juan" 

With the exception of The Ring and the Book, Don Juan, 
containing approximately 16,000 lines, is probably the 
longest original pbem in English since the Faerie Queene; 
moreover, if we exclude the Canterbury Tales, no other work 
in verse in our literature attempts an actual "criticism of 
life" on so broad a scale. It is Byron's deliberate and 
exhaustive characterization of his age, the book in which he 
divulges his opinions with the least reticence and the most 
finality. With all their occasional brilliance and power, his 
earlier satires had been essentially imitative and could be 
judged by pre-existing standards. Later, in composing 
Beppo, Byron discovered that he had found a kind of verse 
capable of free and varied treatment and therefore especially 
suited to his improvising and discursive genius; accordingly, 
in Don Juan, which is a longer and more elaborate Beppo, 
he produced a masterpiece which, besides being an adequate 
revelation of his complex personality, is unique in English, 
anomalous in its manner and method.^ 

Because it reflects nearly every side of Byron's variable 
individuality, Don Juan, though satirical in main intent, 
combines satire with many other elements. It is tragic, 
sensuous, humorous, melancholy, cynical, realistic, and 
exalted, with words for nearly every emotion and temper. 

' "This poem [Don Juan] carries with it at once the stamp of origi- 
nality and defiance of imitation." (Shelley, Letter to Byron, Oct. 21, 
1821). 

163 



l64 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

It contains a romantic story, full of sentiment and tender- 
ness; it rises into passages of lyric and descriptive beauty, 
evidently heart-felt; yet these serious and imaginative 
details are imbedded in a sub-stratum of satire. Further- 
more, its range in substance and style is very great; it 
discusses matters in politics, in society, in literature, and in 
religion; it shifts in a stanza from grave to gay, from the 
commonplace to the sublime. It is a poem of freedom; 
free in thought and free in speech, unrestricted by the 
ordinary laws of metre. "The soul of such writing is its 
license," wrote Byron to Murray in 1819. 

The plot of Don Juan, dealing, like the picaresque 
/romances of Le Sage and Smollett, with a series of adven- 
Mtures in the life of a wandering hero, and interrupted con- 
{Istantly by the comments of the author, has little real unity. 

I Considered as a satire, however, the poem becomes unified 
' through the personality behind the stanzas. It is a colos- 
'sal monument of egotism; wherever we read, we meet the 

,,, inevitable "I." The poet's interest in the progress of his 

II characters is so obviously subordinated to his desire for 
gossiping with his readers that the plot seems, at times, to be 
almost forgotten. Thus Don Juan is as subjective as 
Byron's correspondence; indeed ideas were often transferred 
directly from his letters to his verses. There are lines in the 
poem which restate, sometimes in the same phraseology, 
the confessions and the criticisms recorded by Lady Blessing- 
ton in her Conversations with Lord Byron. Autobiographical 
references are very common, sometimes merely casual,' 
sometimes used as a text for satire.^ The powerful person- 
ality of the writer, expressed thus in his work, furnishes it 
with a unity which is lacking in the plot. 

It is probable that Byron himself had only a vague 

' Don Juan, II., 105; II., 166; V., 4; VI., 5-6. 
2 Ibid., v., 33-39- 



"don juan" 165 

conception of the structure and limits of his poem. His 
conflicting assertions, usually half-jocular, concerning his 
plan or scheme are proof that he cared little about adhering 
to a closely knit form. He is most to be trusted when he 
says : 

"Note or text, 
I never know the word which will come next."' 

or when he confesses to Murray: "You ask me for the plan 
of Donny Juan : I have no plan — I had no plan ; but I had 
or have materials."^ The inconsistent statements in the 
body of the poem are, of course, merely quizzical : thus in the 
first canto Byron says decidedly, 

"My poem's epic, and is meant to be 
Divided in twelve books'';^ 

when the twelfth canto is reached, he has an apology ready: 

"I thought, at setting off, about two dozen 
Cantos would do; but at Apollo's pleading, 
If that my Pegasus should not be foundered, 
I hope to canter gently through a hundred."'' 

As it lengthened Do7i Juan developed more and more into 
a verse diary, bound, from the looseness of its design, to 
remain uncompleted at Byron's death. 

But whatever may have actuated Byron in beginning 
Don Jiian and however uncertain he may have been at 
first about its ultimate purpose, it soon grew to be primarily 
satirical. He himself perceived this in describing it to 
Murray in 1818 as "meant to be a little quietly facetious 
upon everything "5 and in characterizing it in 1822 as "a 

' Don Juan, IX., 41. ^Don Juan, XII., 55. 

'Letters, iv., 342. . 3 Don Juan, I., 200. ^Letters, iv., 260. 



1 66 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

Satire on abuses of the present states of society, " ' Despite 
the intermingHng of other elements, the poem is exactly 
what Byron called it — an "Epic Satire."^ His remark 
" I was born for opposition " indicates how much at variance 
with his age he felt himself to be ; and his inclination to pick 
flaws in existing institutions and to indulge in destructive 
criticism of his time had become so strong that any poem 
which expressed fully his attitude towards life was bound to 
be satirical. Just as the cosmopolitan outlook of the poem 
is due partly to B\'ron's long-continued residence in a 
foreign country, so its varied moods, its diverse methods, 
and its wide range of subject matter are to be attributed, 
to a large extent, to the fact that the composition of Do7i 
Juan extended over several years during a period when he 
was growing intellectually and responding eagerly to new 
ideas. ^ The work is a fair representation of Byron's 
theories and beliefs durifig the period of his maturity, when 
he was developing into an enlightened advocate of progres- 
sive and liberal doctrines. It is an attack on political inertia 
and retrogression, on social conventionality, on cant and 
sham and intolerance. The intermittent, erratic, and 
somewhat imitative radicalism of a few of his earlier poems 
has changed into a persistent hostility to all the reactionary 
conservation of the time. Don Juan is satiric, then, in that 
it is a protest against all that hampers individual freedom 
and retards national independence. 

The pervasive satiric spirit of Don Juan has varied mani- 

' Letters, vi., 155. ^ Don Juan, XIV., 99. 

3 It was begun at Venice, September 6, 18 18, and the first two cantos 
were published anonymously, July 15, 18 19, by Murray. Despite much 
hostile comment, and the reluctance and eventual refusal of Murray to 
print the work, Byron continued with his project, entrusting the publi- 
cation of the poem, after Canto V., to John Hunt. Canto XVI. was 
completed May 6, 1823, and appeared with Canto XV. on March 26, 
1824. Fourteen stanzas of an unfinished Canto XVII. were among his 
papers at the time of his death. 



DON JUAN" 167 

festations. In a few passages there are examples of rancor j 
and spite, of direct personal denunciation and furious invec- 
tive, that recall the satire of English Bards. The attacks on 
Castlereagh and Southey, on Brougham and Lady Byron 
are in deadly earnest, with hardly a touch of mockery. At 
the same time Byron relies mainly on the more playful and 
less savage method which he had learned from the Italians 
and used in Beppo. He himself expressed this alteration 
in mood by saying, 

"Methinks the older that one grows, 
Inclines us more to laugh than scold."' 

It is noticeable, too, that in Don Juan petulant fury is much 
less conspicuous than philosophic satire. Byron is assailing 
institutions and theories as well as men and women. To 
some extent the poem is a medium for satisfying a quarrel 
or a prejudice ; but to a far greater degree it is a summary 
of testimony hostile to the reactionary early nineteenth 
century. The poet still prefers, in many cases, to make 
specific persons responsible for intolerable systems; but he is 
gradually forsaking petty aims and rising to a far nobler 
position as a critic of his age. 

The satire in Don Juan is still more remarkable when we 
consider the field which it surveys. Byron is no longer 
dealing with local topics, but with subjects of momentous 
interest to all humanity. He is assailing, not a small coterie 
of editors or an immodest dance, but a bigoted and absolute 
government, a hypocritical society, and a false idealism, 
wherever they exist. More than this, he so succeeds in 
uniting his satire, through the force of his personality, with 
the eternal elements of realism and romance, that the com- 
bination, complex and intricate though it is, seems to rep- 
resent an undivided purpose. 

' Beppo, 79. 



1 68 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

Perhaps the loftiest note in Byron's protest is struck in 
dealing with the political situation of his day. Despite his 
noble birth and his aristocratic tastes, he had become, 
partly through temperamental inclination, partly through 
association with Moore and Hunt, a fairly consistent re- 
publican, though he took care to make it clear, as Nichol 
points out, that he was "fo r the people, riot of thern." 
Impatient of restraint on his own actions, he extended his 
belief in personal liberty until it included the advocacy of 
any democratic movement. It is to his credit, moreover, 
that he was no mere closet theorist ; in Italy he espoused the 
cause of freedom in a practical way by abetting and joining 
the revolutionary Carbonari; and he died enrolled in the 
ranks of the liberators of Greece. In Don Juan he declares 
himself resolutely opposed to tyranny in any form, asserting 
his hatred of despotism in memorable lines : 

"I will teach, if possible, the stones 
To rise against earth's tyrants. Never let it 
Be said that we still truckle unto thrones."' 

Such doctrine was, of course, not new in Byron's poetry. 
He had already spoken eloquently and mournfully of the 
loss of Greek independence^; he had prophesied the down- 
fall of monarchs and the triumph of democracy^; and he 
had inserted in Childe Harold that vigorous apostrophe to 
liberty : 

"Yet, Freedom, yet thy banner, torn but fiying. 
Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind. "'' 

In Don Juan, however, Byron is less rhetorical and more 
direct. In expressing his 

- Don Juan, VIII., 135. ' Childe Harold, II., 74-76. 

3 Ode to the French, 91-104. ■• Childe Harold, IV., 92. 



"don juan" 169 

"Plain sworn downright detestation 
Of every despotism in every nation, "' 

he does not hesitate to condemn all absolute monarchs; 
moreover he displays a sincere faith in the ultimate success 
of popular government : 

"I think I hear a little bird, who sings 
The people by and by will be the stronger. "^ 

Such lines as these show a maturity and an earnestness that 
mark the evolution of Byron's satiric spirit from the hasty 
petulance of English Bards to the humanitarian breadth of 
his thoughtful manhood. Like "Young Azim" in Moore's 
Veiled Prophet of Khorassan, he is eager to march and com- 
mand under the banner on which is emblazoned "Freedom 
to the World." 

It is characteristic of Byron's later satire that he applied 
his theory of liberty to the current problems of British 
politics by assailing the obnoxious domestic measures in- 
stituted by the Tory ministry of Lord Liverpool, by con- 
demning the English foreign policy of acquiescence in the 
legitimist doctrines of Mettemich and the continental 
powers, and by attacking the characters of the ministers 
whom he considered responsible for England's position at 
home and abroad. The England of the time of Don Juan 
was the country which Shelley so graphically pictured in his 
Sonnet: England in i8ig: — 

"An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king, . . . 
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know. 
But leech-like to their fainting country cling. 
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow, ... 
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field. " 

' Don Juan, IX., 24. 2 d^^ Juan, VIII., 50. 



I/O LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

It was a nation exhausted by war, burdened with debt, and 
seething with discontent. The Luddite outbreaks, the 
"Manchester Massacre," which so excited the wrath of 
Shelley, and the "Cato Street Conspiracy" showed the 
temper of the poor and disaffected classes. Unfortunately 
the cabinet saw the solution of these difficulties not in 
reform but in repression, and preferred to put down the 
uprisings by force rather than to remove their causes. For 
these conditions Byron blamed Castlereagh, the Foreign 
Secretary. 

Byron had never met Castlereagh and had never suffered 
a personal injury from him; his rage, therefore, was directed 
solely at the statesman, not at the man. The Secretary had 
long been detestable to Irish Whigs like Moore ^ and 
English radicals like Shelley^; it remained for Byron to 
track him through life w4th venomous hatred and to pursue 
him beyond the grave with scathing epigrams. For any- 
thing comparable aimed at a man in high position we must 
go back to Marvell's satires on Charles II and the Duke of 
York or to the contemporary satire in 1762 on Lord Bute. 
Byron's Castlereagh has no virtues; the portrait, like 
Gifford's sketch of Peter Pindar, is all in dark colors. The 
satire is vehement and personal, without malice and with- 
out pity. 

' Many details of Byron's satire may be traced to corresponding pas- 
sages in the works of Moore, whose Fudge Family in Paris (18 18) was 
familiar to him, and whose Fables for the Holy Alliance (1823), many of 
which were written while the two poets were together in Venice, was 
dedicated to Byron. Moore denounced Castlereagh as a despot, a 
bigot, and a time-server, ridiculing him especially for the absurdity of 
his speeches, which were notorious for their mixed metaphors and poorly 
chosen phrasing. 

^ vShelley in many short squibs, and particularly in the Mask of 
Anarchy (1819), had assailed the ministry. He had compared Castle- 
reagh and Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, to "two vultures, sick for"* 
battle" and "two vipers tangled into one" (Similes for Two Political 
Characters of 18 ig). 



"don juan" 171 

Byron also attacked Wellington, but in manner ironic 
and scornful, as a leader who had lost all claim to the grati- 
tude of the people by allying himself with their oppressors. 
For George, who as Regent and King, had done nothing to 
redeem himself with his subjects, Byron had little but con- 
tempt. In satirizing these men, however, Byron was perhaps 
less effective than Moore, over whose imitations of Castle- 
reagh's orations and "best-wigged Prince in Christendom, " 
people smiled when Byron's tirades seemed too vicious. 

Through the method commonly called dramatic, or in- 
direct, Byron assailed English pohticians in his portrayal 
of Lord Henry Amundeville, the statesman who is "always 
a patriot — and sometimes a placeman," and who is rep- 
resentative of the unemotional, just, yet altogether selfish 
British minister. The type is drawn with considerable skill 
and with much less rancor than would have been possible 
with Byron ten years before. Indeed the satire resembles 
Dryden's in that it admits of a wide application and is not 
limited to the individual described. 

Nothing in Byron's political creed redounds more to his 
credit than his persistent opposition to all war except that 
carried on in the "defence of freedom, country, or of laws." 
Neglecting the pride and pomp of war, he depicted the 
Siege of Ismail with ghastly realism, laying emphasis on the 
blood and carnage of the battle and condemning especially 
mercenary soldiers, "those butchers in large business." 
Though this attitude towards warfare was not original 
with him,^ Byron spoke out with a firmness and pertinacity 
that marked him as far ahead of his age. 

' Young had condemned war in Satire VII., 55-68 ; Cowper had spoken 
against it in the Task, in the lines: — 

"War is a game which, were their subjects wise, 
* Kings would not play at." 

Leigh Hunt and Shelley held exactly Byron's opinions, and expressed 
them repeatedly. 



172 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

Though Byron, in Don Juan, was almost entirely a de- 
structive critic of the political situation in England and in 
Europe, his ideas were exceedingly influential. In spite 
of the fact that he had no definite remedy to offer for intoler- 
able conditions, his daring championship of oppressed peoples 
affected European thought, not only during his lifetime, 
but also for years after his death. He was revered in Greece 
as more than mortal ; he was an inspiration for Mazzini and 
Cavour ; he seemed to Lamartine an apostle of liberty. It is 
probably to his insistence on the rights of the people and to 
his sweeping indictment of autocratic rule that he owes the 
greatest part of his international recognition. 

Byron's iconoclastic tendencies showed themselves also 
in his attack on English society, in which he aimed to expose 
the selfishness, stupidity, and affectation of the small class 
that represented the aristocratic circle of the nation. In 
dealing with this subject he knew of what he was speaking, 
for he had been a member and a close observer of "that 
Microcosm on_^stilts/5^ept the Great World. " His picture 
of this upper class is humorous and ironic, but seldom vehe- 
ment. In a series of vivid and often brilliant character 
sketches he delineates the personages that Juan, Ambassa- 
dor of Russia, meets in London, touching cleverly on their 
defects and vices, and unveiHng the sensuality, jealousy, and 
deceit which their outward decorum covers. Though the 
figures are types rather than individuals, they were in many 
cases suggested by men and women whom Byron knew- 
Possibly the most effective satire occurs in the description 
of the gathering at Lady Adeline's country-seat, Norman 
Abbey, where some thirty- three guests, "the Brahmins of 
the Ton, " meet at a fashionable house party.' 

' It is possible that Byron, in his description of this assemblage, was 
influenced to some extent by T. L. Peacock, the friend of Shelley, who 
had published Headlong Hall (1816) and Nightmare Abbey (1818). In 
these books Peacock had created a sort of prose Comedy of Humors by 



"don juan" 173 

For these social parasites and office seekers Byron felt 
nothing but contempt. His advice to Juan moving among 
them is: 

"Be hypocritical, be cautious, be 
Not what you seem, but always what you see."^ 

He describes their life as dull and uninteresting, a gay mas- 
querade which palls when all its delights have been tried. 
Its prudery conceals scandal, treachery, and lust; its great 
vices are hypocrisy and cant — "cant political, cant religious, 
cant moral. "^ Indeed the satire of Don Juan, from Canto 
XI to the point where the poem is broken off, is an attack 
on pretence and sham, and a vindication of the free and 
natural man. Byron's motive may have been, in part, the 
desire for revenge on the circle which had cast him out ; but 
certainly he was disgusted with the narrowness and con- 
ventionaHty of his London Ufe, and his newly acquired 
jesting manner found in it a suitable object for satire. 

While Byron's Hberalism and democracy were doing 
effective service in pointing out flaws in existing political 
and social systems, he was still maintaining, not without 
many inconsistencies, his old conservative doctrines in 
literature, and doggedly insisting on the virtue of his literary 
commandments : 

"Thou shalt believe in Milton, Dryden, Pope; 
Thou shalt not set up Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey."' 

While he was being hailed as a leader of the romantic school 
of poetry, he was still defending the principles of Pope, 
praising the work of Crabbe, Rogers, and Campbell, and 

forming groups of curious eccentrics, each one obsessed by a single 
passion or hobby, and by giving each figure a name suggestive of his 
peculiar folly. * Don Juan, XL, 86. 

2 Letters, v., 542. J Don Juan, I., 205. 



174 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

disapproving of the verses of the members of the Lake 
School. He dedicated Don Juan, in a mocking and con- 
descending fashion, to Southey, and described him in the 
sketch of the bard ' ' paid to satirise or flatter ' ' who sang to 
Haidee and Juan the beautiful lyric, The Isles of Greece.^ 
He ridiculed The Waggoner and Peter Bell, treating Words- 
worth with an hostihty which is almost inexplicable in view 
of Byron's indebtedness in Childe Harold, III and IV to the 
older poet's feeling for nature. Only in minor respects had 
Byron's position changed ; he was more appreciative of Scott 
and less vindictive towards Jeffrey ; and he had found at least 
one new literary enemy in the poetaster, William Sotheby. 
In general there was little for him to add to what he had 
already said in English Bards. His otherwise progressive 
spirit had not extended into the field of literary criticism. 

It is not at all surprising that a large portion of Don Juan 
should be devoted to two subjects in which Byron had 
always been deeply interested — woman and love. Nor 
is it at all remarkable, in view of his singularly complex and 
variable nature, that the poem should contain not only the 
exquisite idyll of Haidee but also line after line of cynical 
satire o'h her sex. Though Byron's opinion of women was 
usually not complimentary, sentiment, and even sentimen- 
tality of a certain sort, had a powerful attraction for him. 
If many of his love afifairs were followed and even accom- 
panied by cynicism, it was because the passion in such cases 
was sensual, and in reaction, he went to the other extreme. 
The influence of the Guiccioli, however, manifest in his 
descriptions of Haidee and Aiu-ora Raby, was beneficial to 
Byron's character, and his ideas of love were somewhat 
altered through his relations with her. At the same time 
the conventional assertions of woman's inconstancy and 
treachery so common in his earlier work recur frequently in 
Don Juan. 

' Don Juan, III., 78-87. 



"don JUAN 175 

Love, according to Byron's philosophy, can exist only 
when it is free and untrammelled. The poet's too numerous 
amours and the general laxity of Italian morals had joined 
in exciting in him a prejudice against English puritanism; 
while his own unfortunate marital experience had convinced 
him that " Love and Marriage rarely can combine. " ^ The 
remembrance of his married life and his observation in the 
land of his adoption were both instrumental in forming his 
conclusion : 

"There 's doubtless something in domestic doings. 
Which forms, in fact, true love's antithesis. "^ 

When marriage, then, is so unalluring, the logical refuge is 
an honest friendship with a married lady, "of all connections 
the most steady."'' "W'hen Byron does speak of women 
with apparent respect, it is always well to search for irony 
behind. If he says, evidently with emotion: 

"All who have loved, or love, will still allow 
Life has nought like it. God is love, they say. 
And love 's a god,""* 

he qualifies his ecstacy elsewhere by asserting that Love is 
"the very God of evil."^ Although he protests that he 
loves the sex,^ he must add that they are deceitful,^ hypo- 
critical,^ and fickle.' 

Nothing in the first two cantos of Don Juan was more 
offensive to Hobhouse and the "Utican Senate" to which 
Murray submitted them than the poorly disguised portrayal 
of Lady Byron in the character of Donna Inez. Though 

^ Don Juan, III., ^. ^ Ibid., III., 3. 

Ubid., III., 25. ^ Ibid., VI., 6. 

s Ibid., II., 205. 6 Ibid., VI., 27. 

1 Ibid., I., i78;Xl., 36. « Ibid., VI., 14. 
»/6jd., VI., 2. 



176 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

Byron explicitly disavowed all intention of satirising his 
wife directly, no one familiar with the facts could possibly 
have doubted that this lady "whose favorite science was 
the mathematical," who opened her husband's trunks and 
letters, and tried to prove her loving lord mad, and who 
acted under all circumstances like "Morality's prim per- 
sonification" was intended to represent the former Miss 
Milbanke and present Lady Byron. 

Doubtless there is something artificial and affected in 
much of Byron's cynical comment on women and love; but 
if we are inclined to distrust this man of many amours who 
delights in flaunting his past before the eyes of his shocked 
compatriots, we must remember that there is probabh' no 
conscious insincerity in his words. Byron frequently de- 
ludes not only his readers but himself, and his satire on 
women, when it is not a kind of bravado, is merely part of 
his worldly philosophy. 

The philosophical conceptions on which Don Juan rests 
are, in their general trend, not uncommonly satirical; that 
is, they are destructive rather than constructive, skeptical 
rather than idealistic, founded on doubt rather than on 
faith. It is the object of the poem to overturn tottering 
institutions, to upset traditions, and to unveil illusions. 
Byron's attitude is that so often taken by a thorough man 
of the world who has tasted pleasure to the point of satiety, 
and who has amved at early middle age with his enthusiasms 
weakened and his faith sunk in pessimism. This accounts 
for much of the realism in the poem. Sometimes the poet, 
in the effort to portray things as they are, merely tran- 
scribes the prose narratives of others into verse,' just as 

' In Canto II., the entire shipwreck episode is a symposium of 
accounts of other wrecks taken from DaXzcWsShipivnrks and Disasters 
at Sea (1812), Remarkable Slti/)ivrecks (1813), Bligh's /I Narrative of the 
Mutiny of the Bounty (1790). and The Narrative of the Honourable John 
Byron (1768), the last named work being the story of the adventures of 



"don juan" 177 

Shakspcre borrowed passages from North's Plutarch for 
Julius C(Bsar. More often he undertakes to detect and re- 
veal the incongruity between actuahty and pretence, and to 
expose weakness and folly under its mask of sham. The 
realism of this sort closely resembles the more modern work 
of Zola, attributing as it does even good actions to low 
motives and degrading deliberately the better impulses of 
mankind. In Byron's case it seems to be the result partly 
of a wish to avoid carrying sentiment and romance to excess, 
partly of a distorted or partial view of life. Whatever 
romance there is in Don Juan — and the amount is not in- 
considerable — is invariably followed by a drop into pathos 
or absurdity. The deservedly famous "Ave Maria,' ' with 
its exquisite sentiment and melody, is closed by a stanza 
harsh and grating, which calls the reader with a shock back 
to a lower level. This juxtaposition of tenderness and 
mockery, tending by contrast to accentuate both moods, 
is highly characteristic of the spirit of the poem. Juan's 
lament for Donna Julia is interrupted by sea-sickness,' 
and his rhetorical address on London, "Freedom's chosen 
station," is broken off by "Damn your eyes! your money 
or your life. "^ Byron never overdoes the emotional 
element- in Don Juan; he draws us back continually to the 
commonplace, and sometimes to the mean and vulgar. *♦ 
Byron's grandfather. His account of the siege and capture of Ismail 
in Cantos VII. and VIII. is based, even, in minute details, on Decastel- 
nau's Essai sur I'histoire ancienne et moderne de la Nouvelle Russie. 

■ Don Juan, III., 101-109. ' Ibid., II., 17-23- 

3 Ibid., XI., 10. 

' Byron attributed the unpopularity of Don Juan with the ladies, and 
particularly with the Countess Guiccioli, to the fact that it is the "wish 
of all women to exalt the sentiment of the passions, and to keep up the 
illusion which is their empire " and that the poem "strips oflf this illusion, 
and lauglis at that and most other things " {Letters, v., 32 1 ). It was the 
opjjosition of the Countess which induced him to promise to leave off the 
work at the fifth canto, a pledge which he fortunately disregarded after 
keeping it for several months. 



178 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

Byron's materialistic and skeptical habit of mind is often 
put into phraseology that recalls the "Que sais-je?" of 
Montaigne. Rhetorical disquisitions on the vanity of hu- 
man knowledge and of worldly achievement had appeared 
in Childe Harold^; in Don Juan the poet dismisses the great 
problems of existence with a jest : ^ 

"What is soul, or mind, their birth and growth, 
Is more than I know — the deuce take them both."^ 

In the words of the British soldier, Johnson, to Juan, we 
have, perhaps, a summary of the position which Byron 
himself had reached-. 

"There are still many rainbows in your sky, 
But mine have vanished. All, when Life is new, 
Commence with feelings warm and prospects high ; 
But Time strips our illusions of their hue. 
And one by one in turn, some grand mistake 
Casts off its bright skin yearly like the snake. "^ 

As a corollary to this recognition of the futility of human 
endeavor, the doctrine of mutability, so common in Shelley's 
poetry, appears frequently in Don Juan,'^ ringing in the 
note of sadness which Byron would have us believe was his 
underlying mood. Curiously enough, though he cynically 
classed together "rum and true religion" as calming to the 
spirit,^ he was chary of assailing Christian theology or 
orthodox creeds. He preserved a kind of respect for the 
Church ; and even Dr. Kennedy was obliged to'admit that on 
religious questions Byron was a courteous and fair, as well 

' Childe Harold, II., 7. 

* Don Juan, Yl., 22. See also I., 215; III., 35. 3 Ibid., V., 21. 

^ Ibid., XL, 82, 86. 5 Ibid., II., 34. 



"don juan" 179 

as an acute, antagonist. Perhaps the half-faith which led 
him to say once "The trouble is I do believe" may account 
for the fact that, at a time when William Hone and other 
satirists were making the Church of England a target for 
their wit, Don Juan^ontdimed no reference to that institution. 

Byron, then, refused to accept any of the creeds and 
idealisms of his day. His own position, however, was 
marked by doubt and vacillation, and he took no positive 
attitude towards any of the great problems of existence. 
Experience led him to nothing but uncertainty and inde- 
cision, with the result that he became content to destroy, 
since he was unable to construct. 

This is no place for discussing the fundamental morality 
or immorality of Don Juan. The British public of Byron's 
day, basing their judgment largely upon the voluptuousness 
of certain love scenes and upon some coarse phrases scat- 
tered here and there through the poem, charged him with 
"brutally outraging all the best feeling of humanity." 
There can be no doubt that Byron did ignore the ordinary 
standards of conduct among average people; though he 
asserted "My object is Morality,"^ no one knew better 
than he that he was constantly running counter to the 
conventional code of behavior. Nor can any one doubt, 
after a study of his letters to Murray and Moore, that he 
felt a sardonic glee in acting as an agent of disillusion and 
pretending to be a very dangerous fellow. This spirit led 
him to employ profanity in Don Juan until his friend Hob- 
house protested : "Don't swear again — the third 'damn.'"^ 
By assailing many things that his time held sacred, by 
calling love "selfish in its beginning as its end,"^ and main- 
taining that the desire for money is "the only sort of pleasure 
that requites,"'' Byron drew upon himself the charge of 

^ Don Juan, XII., 86. ^Poetry, VI., 79. 

3 Don Juan, IX., 73. " Ibid., XIII., 100. 



l8o LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

immorality. The poem, however, does not attempt to 
justify debauchery or to defend vicious practices; Byron is 
attacking not virtue, but false sentiment, false idealism, 
and false faith. His satiric spirit is engaged in analyzing 
and exposing the strange contradictions and contrasts in 
human life, in tearing down what is sham and pretence and 
fraud. Judged from this standpoint, Don Juan is pro- 
foundly moral. 

Fortunately, in this poem the design of which was to 
exploit the doctrine of personal freedom, Byron had dis- 
covered a medium through which he could make his indi- 
viduality effective, in which he could speak in the first person, 
leave off his stor}^ when he chose, digress and comment on 
current events, and voice his every mood and whim. The 
colloquial tone of the poem strikes the reader at once. He 
censures himself in a jocular way for letting the tale slip 
forever through his fingers, and confesses with mock 
humility, 

"If I have any fault, it is digression."' 

The habit of calling himself back to the narrative becomes 
almost as much of an idiosyncrasy as Mr. Kipling's "But 
that is another story. "^ Obviously Byron's words are 
really no more than half-apologetic; he knew perfectly well 
what he was doing and why he was doing it. Without 
insisting too much on the value of a mathematical estimate 
it is still safe to say that Don Juan is fully half-concerned 
with that sort of gossipy chat with which Byron's visitors 
at Venice or Pisa were entertained,^ and as the poem 

' Don Juan, III., 96. 

^ See Ibid., I., 9; II., 8; III., no; IV., 113; VI., 57, and numerous 
other instances. 

3 Only in Canto II. does the story begin at once; every other canto has 
a preliminary disquisition. Canto IX., containing eighty-five stanzas, 
uses forty-one of them before the narrative begins, and of the entire 



"don JUAN l8l 

lengthened, his tendency was to neglect the plot more and 
more. Indeed the justification for treating Don Juan as a 
satire lies mainly in these side-remarks in which Byron 
discloses his thoughts and opinions with so little reserve. 
The digressions in the poem are used principally for two 
purposes: to satirize directly people, institutions, or theories; 
to gossip about the writer himself. In either case we may 
imagine Byron as a monologist, telling us what he has done 
and what he is going to do, what he has seen and heard, 
what he thinks on current topics, and illustrating points 
here and there by a short anecdote or a compact maxim. 
In such a series of observations, extending as they do over a 
number of years and written as they were under rapidly 
shifting conditions, it is uncritical to demand unity. We 
might as well expect to find a model drama in a diary. The 
important fact is that we have in these digressions a con- 
tinuous exposition of Byron's satire during the most import- 
ant years of his life. 

The peculiar features of the octave stanza, with its oppor- 
tunity for double and triple rhymes and the loose structure of 
its sestette, made it more suited to Byron's genius than the 
more compact and less flexible heroic couplet. At the same 
time the concluding couplet of the octave offered him a chance 
for brief and epigrammatic expression. In general it may be 
said that no metrical form lends itself more readily to the 
colloquial style which Byron preferred than does the octave. 

In utilizing this stanza, Byron, accepting the methods of 
Pulci and Casti, allowed himself the utmost liberties in 
rhyming and verse-structure. We have already seen that 

number, forty-six are clearly made up of extraneous material. Of the 
ninety stanzas in Canto XL, over fifty are occupied with Byron's satire 
on EngUsh society and contemporary events. Canto II. is, of course, 
filled largely with the shipwreck and the episode of Haid^e; but in 
Canto III., over forty of the entire one hundred and eleven stanzas are 
discursive, and many others are partly so. 



l82 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

in several youthful poems, and, indeed, in some later epheme- 
ral verses, he had shown a fondness for remarkable rhymes. 
By the date of Beppo he had broken away entirely from the 
rigidity of the Popcan theory of poetry, and had confessed 
that he enjoyed a freer style of writing: 

" I — take for rhyme, to hook my rambling verse on, 
The first that Walker's lexicon unravels, 
And when I can't find that, I put a worse on, 
Not caring as I ought for critics' cavils."' 

In Don Juan this employment of uncommon rhymes had 
become a genuine art. Byron once declared to Trelawney 
that Swift was the greatest master of rhyming in English; 
but Byron is as superior to Swift as the latter is to Barham 
and Browning in this respect. Indeed Byron's only rival is 
Butler, and there are many who would maintain, on good 
grounds, that Byron as a master of rhyming is greater than 
the author of Hudihras. When we consider the length of 
Don Juan, the constant demand for double and triple 
rhymes, and the fact that Byron seldom repeated himself, 
we cannot help marvelling at the linguistic cleverness which 
enabled him to discover such unheard-of combinations of 
syllables and words. Some of the most extraordinary have 
become almost classic,^ e.g: — 

"But — Oh! ye lords of ladies intellectual, 
Inform us truly, have they not hen-pecked you all?"^ 

"Since in a way that 's rather of the oddest, he 
Became divested of his native modesty."'' 

Naturally in securing such a variety of rhymes he was 

' Beppo, 52. 

* For other rhymes of exceptional peculiarity, see Don Juan, I., 102; 
II., 206; II., 207; v., 5. i Ibid, I., 22. * Ibid., II., I. 



"don juan" 183 

forced to draw from many sources. Foreign languages 
proved a rich field, and he obtained from them some striking 
examples of words similar in sound, sometimes rhyming 
them with words from the same language, sometimes fitting 
them to English words and phrases. Some typical speci- 
mens are worthy of quotation : 

Latin — in medias res, please, ease. ' 

Greek — critic is, poietikes.^ 

French — seat, tdte-^-tete, bete.^ 

Italian — plenty, twenty, "mi vien in mente."* 

Spanish — Lope, copy.^ 

Russian — Strokenoff, Chokenofif, poke enough.^ 

Byron also resorts to the uses of proper names, borrowed 
from many tongues : 

Dante's — Cervantes. "^ 

Hovel is — Mephistophelis.^ 

Tyrian — Presbyterian. ' 

Avail us — Sardanapalus.'" 

Pukes in — Euxine. ^ ' 
It may be added, too, that he was seldom over-accurate or 
careful in making his rhymes exact. In one instance he 
rhymes certainty — philosophy — progeny.'^ Most stanzas 
have either double or triple rhymes, but there are occasional 
stanzas in which all the rhymes are single. '^ 

In Don Juan run-on lines are the rule rather than the 
exception. Certain stanzas are really sentences in which 
the thought moves straight on, disregarding entirely the 
ordinary restrictions of versification.^'' In more than one 



' Don Juan, I., 6. 


'Ibid., III., III. 


3 Ibid. 


XIII., 94 


4 Ibid., I., 62. 


^ Ibid., I., II. 


« Ibid., 


VII., 15. 


7 Ibid., VII., 3. 


8 Ibid., XIII., 8. 


» Ibid. 


XV., 91. 


'"Ibid., II., 207. 


"Ibid., v., 5. 






''Ibid., XIV., I. 


See also I. ,25; I., 67; XVI., 4. 






■3 Ibid., I., 154; II 


, 13,22,38. 






'■• A characteristic 


example is Ibid., IX., 34. 







184 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

case the idea is even carried from one stanza to another 
without a pause.' In one extraordinary instance a word 
is broken at the end of a line and finished at the beginning of 
the next,^ following the example set by the Anti- Jacobin 
in Rogero's song in The Rovers. Like a public speaker, 
Byron at times neglects coherence in order to keep the 
thread of his discourse or to digress momentarily without 
losing grip on his audience. 

Much of the humor of Don Juan is due to the varied 
employment of many forms of verbal wit : puns, plays upon 
words, and odd repetitions and turns of expression. The 
puns are not always commendable for their brilliance, 
though they serve often to burlesque a serious subject. In 
at least one stanza Byron uses a foreign language in pun- 
ning. ^ In general it is noticeable that puns become more 
common in the later cantos of the poem.'' There are also 
many curious turns of expression, comparable only to some 
of the quips of Hood and Praed.^ Frequently, they are 
exceedingly clever in the suddenness with which they shift 
the thought and give the reader an unexpected surprise, e.g.: 

"Lambo presented, and one instant more 
Had stopped this canto and Don Juan's breath."^ 

Repetitions of words or sounds often convey the effect of a 
pun, e.g.: 

"They either missed, or they were never missed, 
And added greatly to the misusing list."' 

The witty line, 

• Don Juan, I., 123-124; V., 8-9; V., 18-19; VIII., 109-110. 

' Ilnd., I., 120. i Ibid., XV., 72. 

* Ibid., VI., 64; VII., 21 ; VIII., 30; XIII., 75; XIV., 29, 63; XVI., 60, 
94, 98. s Ibid., I., 34; VI., 47; VIII., 32. 

*■ Ibid., IV., 42. T Ibid. ,Vn., 27. 



"don juan" 185 

"But Tom 's no more — and so no more of Tom, "^ 

is an excellent example of Byron's verbal artistry. 

It should be added here, also, that Byron displayed a 
singular capacity for coining maxims and compressing much 
worldly wisdom into a compact form. Some of his sayings 
have so far passed into common speech that they are almost 
platitudes, e.g.: 

"There is no sterner moralist than pleasure. "^ 

As has been pointed out, this kind of sententious utterance 
in the form of a proverb or an epigram was very common 
with the Italian burlesque writers, especially with Pulci. 
Something of the universality of Don Juan, of its appeal, 
not only to particular countries and peoples, but also to the 
world at large, may be indicated by the number of transla- 
tions of it which exist. 3 It appeared in French in 1827, in 
Spanish in 1829, in Swedish in 1838, in German in 1839, 
in Russian in 1846, in Roumanian in 1847, in Italian in 1853, 
in Danish in 1854, i" Polish in 1863, and in Servian in 1888. 
Since these first versions appeared, other and more satis- 
factory ones have been published in most of the countries 
named. It was chiefly through Don Juan that Byron 
became, what Saintsbury calls him, "the sole master of 
young Russia, young Italy, young Spain, in poetry." In 
these days when Byron's defence of the rights of the people 
is less necessary, when his opposition to despotism would 

' Don Juan, XL, 20. 

'Ibid., III., 6. See also I., 63, 65, 72; 11. , 172, 179; IX., 15, 59; 
XIII , 6, 19. 

3 Many imitations and parodies of Don Juan were printed during 
Byron's lifetime, and afterwards; among them were Canto XVII. of Don 
Juan, by One who desires to remain a very great Unknown (1832); 
Don Juan Junior, a Poem, by Byron's Ghost (1839); A Sequel to 
Don Juan (1843); The Termination of the Sixteenth Canto of Lord 
Byron's Don Juan (1864), by Harry W. Wetton. 



1 86 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

find few tyrants to oppose, and when his condemnation of 
war has developed into a widespread movement for universal 
peace, the powerful impetus which his satire gave to the 
progress of democracy is likely to be overlooked. His 
attitude of defiance furnished an illustrious example to 
struggling nations, and gave them hope of better things. ' 

Within this limited space it has been possible to touch 
only upon one or two phases of the many which this poem, 
perhaps the greatest in English since Paradise Lost, presents 
to the reader. Byron's satire, in assuming a wider scope 
and a greater breadth of view, in growing out of the insular 
into the cosmopolitan, has also blended itself with romance 
and realism, with the lyric, the descriptive, and the epic 
types of poetry until it4ias created a new literary form and 
method suitable only to a great genius. His satiric spirit, 
in assailing not only individuals, but also institutions, sys- 
tems, and theories of life, in concerning itself less with 
literary grudges and personal quarrels than with momentous 
questions of society, in progressing steadily from the spe- 
cific to the universal, has undergone a striking evolution. 
The tone of his satire has become less formal and dignified, 
and more colloquial, while a more frequent use of irony, 
burlesque, and verbal wit makes the poem easier and more 
varied. Byron joins mockery with invective, raillery with 
contempt, so that Don Juan, in retaining certain qualities of 

' Byron's influence upon the literature of the nineteenth century 
may be studied in Otto Weddigen's treatise Lord Byron's Einfluss auf 
die Europaischen Litteraturen der Neuzeit and in Richard Ackermann's 
Lord Byron (pp. 158-182). Collins numbers among his disciples in 
Germany, Wilhelm Mueller, Heine, Von Platen, Adalbert Chamisso, 
Karl Lebrecht, Immermann, and Christian Grabbe; among his French 
imitators, Lamartine, Hugo, de la Vigne, and dc Mussct; among his 
followers in Russia, Poushkin and Lermontoff. To these should be 
added Giovanni Berchet in Italy, and Jos^ de Espronceda in Spain. 
No other English poet, except Shakspere, has impressed his personality 
so strongly upon foreign countries. 



"don juan" 187 

the old Popean satire, seems to have tempered and qualified 
the acrimony of English Bards. The inevitable result of 
this development was to make Don Juan a reflection of 
Byron's personality such as no other of his works had been. 
Don Juan is Byron; and in this fact lies the explanation of 
its strength and weakness. 



CHAPTER IX 
"the vision of judgment" 

Byron's Vision of Judgment, printed in the first number 
of The Liberal, October 15, 1820, was the climax of his long 
quarrel with Southey, the complicated details of which have 
been related at length by Mr. Prothero in his edition of the 
Letters and Journals. ^ Byron's hostility to Southey was due 
apparently to several causes, some personal, some political, 
and some literary. He believed that Southey had spread 
malicious reports about the alleged immorality of his life in 
Switzerland with Jane Clermont, Mary Godwin, and Shelley ; 
he considered the laureate to be an apostate from liberalism 
and a truckler to aristocracy; and he had no patience with 
his views on poetry and his lack of respect for Pope. The 
two men were, in fact, fundamentally incompatible in 
temperament and opinions, Southey being firmly convinced 
that Byron was a dissipated and dangerous debauchee, 
while Byron thought Southey a dull, servile, and somewhat 
hypocritical scribbler. 

Since The Vision of Judgment was Byron's only attempt at 
genuine travesty, it may be well to differentiate between 
the travesty and other kindred forms of satire, all of which 
are commonly grouped under the generic heading, burlesque. 
Broadly speaking, a burlesque is any literary production 
in which there is an absurd incongruity in the adjustment 
of style to subject matter or subject matter to style, humor 

' Letters, vi., 377-399. 



"the vision of judgment" 189 

being excited by a continual contrast between what is high 
and what is low, what is exalted and what is commonplace. ' 
The peculiar effect of burlesque is ordinarily dependent 
upon its comparison \vith some form of literature of a more 
serious nature. Of the subdivisions of burlesque, the 
parody aims particularly at the humorous imitation of the 
style and manner of another work, the original characters 
and incidents being displaced by incidents of a more trifling 
sort. The parody has been a popular variety of satire, and 
examples of it may be discovered in the productions of any 
sophisticated or critical age.^ The travesty, in the narrow 
sense of the term, is a humorous imitation of another work, 
the subject matter remaining substantially the same, being 
made ridiculous, however, by a grotesque treatment and a 
less imaginative style. A serious theme is thus deliberately 
degraded and debased. The commonest subjects of travesty 
have been derived, as one might expect, from mythology or 
from the great epic poems. Its popularity, except in 
certain limited periods, has never equalled that of the 
parody.^ 

Considered simply as a travesty, Byron's Vision is 

' Thus in the Batrachomyomachia the elevated manner of epic poetry 
is used in depicting a warfare between frogs and mice; while in Voltaire's 
La Pucelle, the French national heroine is made to behave like a daugh- 
ter of the streets. 

^ Some examples of the parody are The Splendid Shilling (1701) by 
John Philips (1676-1709) ; The Pipe of Tobacco (1734) by Isaac Hawkins 
Browne (1760); Probationary Odes; Rejected Addresses; and Swinburne's 
Heptalogia. 

3 The travesty flourished especially during the 17th century in the 
work of Paul Scarron (1610-1660) and his followers in France, and of 
Charles Cotton (1630-1687), John Philips (1631-1706), and Samuel 
Butler (1612-1680) in England. During this period Virgil and Ovid 
were popular subjects for travesty. Several travesties of Homer were 
pubHshed in England during the i8th century, one of which, by Bridges, 
was read by Byron {Letters, v., 166). 



I90 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

remarkable in two respects: first, in that it burlesques a 
contemporary poem, while most other travesties ridicule 
works of antiquity, or at least of established repute; second, 
in that it has an intrinsic merit of its own far surpassing 
that of the poem which suggested it. Thus the general 
dictum that a travesty is valuable chiefly through the 
contrast which it presents to some nobler masterpiece is 
contradicted by Byron's satire, which is in itself an artistic 
triumph. 

Southey's Vision of Judgment, of which Byron's Vision 
is a travesty, was written in the author's function as poet- 
laureate shortly after the death of George III. on January 
29, 1820. Certainly in many ways it lent itself readily to 
burlesque.^ It was composed in the unrhymed dactyllic 
hexameter, a measure in which Southey was even less 
successful than Harvey and Sidney had been. It was full 
of adulation of a king, who, however much he may have 
been distinguished for domestic virtues, was surely, in his 
public activities, no suitable subject for encomium. It 
was dedicated, moreover, to George IV. in language which 
seems to us to-day the grossest flattery^. The poem itself, 
divided into twelve sections, deals with the appearance of 
the old King at the gate of heaven, his judgment and beati- 
fication by the angels, and his meeting with the shades of 
illustrious dead — English worthies, mighty figures of the 
Georgian age, and members of his own family. 

Many special features of Southey's poem were disagree- 

' Charles Lamb said of it that it deserved prosecution far more than 
Byron's Vision; and Nichol has styled it "the most quaintly preposter- 
ous panegyric ever penned." 

^ In his dedication Southey called George IV. "the royal and munifi- 
cent patron of science, art, and literature," and praised the monarch's 
rule as Regent and King as an epoch remarkable for perfect integrity in 
the administration of public affairs and for attempts to "mitigate the 
evils incident to our state of societv." 



"the vision of judgment" 191 

able to Byron. It was a vindication and a eulogy of the 
existing system of government in England, George III, 
whom Byron despised, being described as an ideal sovereign. 
Southey had made a contemptuous reference to what he 
was pleased to call the watchwords of Faction, "Freedom, 
Invaded Rights, Corruption, and War, and Oppression," a 
summary which must have been distasteful to a man who 
had been raising his voice in resistance to political tyranny. 
Southey had also carefully omitted Dryden and Pope from 
the list of great writers whom George III met in heaven. 
On the whole Southey 's poem was pervaded by a tone of 
arrogance and self-satisfaction which was exceedingly offen- 
sive to Byron. 

Byron had begun his travesty on May 7, 1821, and had 
sent it to Murray from Ravenna on October 4th. ^ Un- 
conscious of the fact that this satire was in Murray's hands, 
Southey meanwhile had published his Letter to the Courier, 
January 5, 1822, vindictively personal, and containing one 
unlucky paragraph: "One word of advice to Lord Byron 
before I conclude. When he attacks me again, let it be in 
rhyme. For one who has s'o little command of himself, it 
will be a great advantage that his temper should be obliged 
to keep tune." When this Letter came to Byron's notice, 
his anger boiled over; he sent Southey a challenge, which 
through the discretion of Kinnaird, was never delivered^; 
and he decided immediately to publish his Vision, which he 
had almost determined to suppress. Murray, however, 
delayed the proof, and on July 3, 1822, Byron, irritated by 
this tardiness and enthusiastic over his newly planned 
periodical, The Liberal, sent a letter by John Hunt,^ the 
proprietor of the magazine, requesting Murray to turn the 
satire over to Hunt. In the first number of The Liberal^ 
then, the Vision was given the most conspicuous position, 
printed, however, without the preface, which Murray, either 

' Letters, v., 387. ^ Ibid., vi., 10. ^ ihid., vi., 93. 



192 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

ignorantly or unfairly, had withheld from Hunt. A vigor- 
ous letter from Byron recovered the preface, which was 
inserted in a second edition of the periodical.^ The con- 
sequences of publication somewhat justified Murray's 
apprehensions. John Hunt was prosecuted by the Consti- 
tutional Association, and on July 19, 1824, only three days 
after Byron's body had been buried in the church of Huck- 
nall Torkard, was convicted, fined one hundred pounds, 
and compelled to enter into securities for five years. In 
fairness to Byron, it must be added that he had offered to 
come to England in order to stand trial in Hunt's stead, and 
had desisted only when he found that such procedure would 
not be allowed.^ 

In his Vision, Byron had at least four objects for his 
satire. He wished to ridicule Southey's poem by bur- 
lesquing many of its absurd elements ; he aimed to proceed 
more directly against Southey by exposing the weak points 
in his character and career; he desired to present a true 
picture of George III, in contrast to Southey's idealized 
portrait ; and he intended to make a general indictment of all 
illiberal government and particularly of the policy then 
being pursued by the English Tory party. He seized 
instinctively upon the weaknesses of the panegyric, and 
while preserving the general plan and retaining many of the 
characters, freely mocked at its cant and smug conceit. 
Through a style purposely grotesque and colloquial, he 
turned Southey's pompous rhetoric into absurdity; by 
touches of realism and caricature he made the solemn angels 
and demons laughable; while, occasionally rising to a loftier 
tone suggestive of the spirit of Don Juan, he reasserted his 
love of liberty and hatred of despotism. 

In executing his project, Byron deliberately neglected a 
large part of Southey's Vision and confined himself almost 
exclusively to the scene at the trial of the King. He began 

' Letters, vi., 129. ' Ibid., vi., 159. 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT I93 

actually with the situation represented in Section IV of 
Southey's poem, omitting all the preliminary matter, and 
ended with Southey's Section V, avoiding entirely the 
meeting of George with the English worthies. So far as 
subject matter is concerned, Byron travestied only two of 
the twelve divisions of the earlier work. He concentrated 
his attention on the judgment of the King, and then deserted 
formal travesty in order to introduce his attack on Southey. 
It was part of Byron's scheme that angels and demons, 
serious characters in Southey's poem, should be made the 
objects of mirth. By a dexterous application of realism, 
he changed the New Jerusalem of Southey into a very 
earthly place, where angels now and then sing out of tune 
and hoarse, and where six angels and twelve saints act as 
a business-like Board of Clerks. These creatures of the 
spiritual realm are very substantial beings, not at all im- 
mune from mortal infirmities and passions. Saint Peter is 
a dull somnolent personage who grumbles over the leniency 
of heaven's Master towards earth's kings, and sweats 
through his apostolic skin at the appalling sight of Lucifer 
and demons pursuing the body of George to the very doors 
of heaven. Satan salutes Michael, 

"as might an old Castilian 
Poor noble meet a mushroom rich civilian, " 

and the archangel, in turn, greets the fallen Lucifer super- 
ciliously as "my good old friend." It is probable that in 
this practice of treating with ridicule those beings who are 
commonly spoken of with reverence, Byron is imitating 
Pulci, whose angels and devils are also, in their attributes, 
more human than divine. 

Byron's trial scene, in which Lucifer and Michael dispute 
for the possession of George III, is an admirable travesty of 
Southey's representation of the same episode. The glorified 



194 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

monarch of Southey's Vision meets in Byron's satire with 
scant courtesy from Lucifer, who acts as attorney for the 
prosecution. Lucifer admits the king's "tame virtues" and 
grants that he was a " tool from first to last " ; but he charges 
him with having "ever warr'd with Freedom and the free, " 
with having stained his career with ' ' national and individual 
woes," with having resisted Catholic emancipation, and 
with having lost a continent to his country. Wilkes and 
Junius, the two shamefaced accusers of Southej^'s Vision, 
now act in a different manner. Wilkes scornfully extends 
his forgiveness to the king, and Junius, while reiterating the 
truth of his original accusations, refuses to be enlisted as an 
incriminating witness. This section of the satire is splen- 
didly managed. The whole assault on the king tends to 
show him as more misguided than criminal. The lines, 

"A better farmer ne'er brush'd dew from lawn, 
A worse king never left a realm undone!" 

create a kind of sympathy for George in that they portray 
him as a man placed in a position for which he was mani- 
festly unfitted. 

Southey's name is mentioned only once before the 35th 
stanza of Byron's poem, but from that point until the con- 
clusion the work deals entirely with him. These stanzas 
constitute what is probably Byron's happiest effort at 
personal satire. For once he did not act in haste, but care- 
fully matured his project, studied its execution, and per- 
mitted his first impulsive anger to moderate into scorn. 
With due attention to craftsmanship, he surveyed and 
annihilated his enemy, laughing at him contemptuously 
and making every stroke tell. It should be observed too 
that he chose a method largely indirect and dramatic. He 
did not, as in English Bards, merely apply offensive epithets; 
rather he placed Southey in a ridiculous situation and made 



"the vision of judgment 195 

him the sport of other characters. The satire, is, therefore, 
exceedingly effective since it allows the victim no chance 
for a reply. ^ By turning the laugh on Sou they, Byron 
closed the controversy by attaining what is probably the 
most desirable result of purely personal satire — the making 
an opponent seem not hateful but absurd. 

Byron's poem, however, was something more than a 
chapter in the satisfaction of a private quarrel. It is also a 
liberal polemic, assailing not only the whole system of 
constituted authority in England, but also tyranny and 
repression wherever they operate. The indictment of 
George III, which at times approaches sublimity, is in reality 
directed against the entire reactionary policy of contempo- 
rary European statesmen and rulers. The doctrines of the 
revolutionary Byron, already familiar to us in Don Juan, 
are to be found in the ironic stanzas upon the sumptuous 
funeral of the king, a passage admired by Goethe; respect 
for monarchy itself had died out in a nobleman who could 
say of George's entombment: 

"It seemed the mockery of hell to fold 
The rottenness of eighty years in gold. " 

With all its broad humor, the satire is aflame with indigna- 
tion. In this respect the poem performed an important 
public service. In place of stupid content with things as 
they were, it offered critical comment on existing conditions, 
comment somewhat biassed, it is true, but nevertheless in 
refreshing contrast to the conventional submission of the 
great majority of the British public. 

' In the only public retort which Southey undertook, a Letter to the 
Courier, December 8, 1824, he could do little more than make charges 
of misrepresentation, and repeat his accusation that Byron was one 
"who played the monster in literature, and aimed his blows at women." 
Southey unwittingly had engaged with too powerful an antagonist and 
only his want of a sense of humor kept him from appreciating the fact. 



196 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

Much of what has already been pointed out with regard 
to the sources and inspiration of Don Juan may be applied 
without alteration to The Vision of Judgment, which is, as 
Byron told Moore, written "in the Pulci style, which the 
fools in England think was invented by Whistlecraft — it is 
as old as the hills in Italy. "^ The Vision, being shorter 
and more unified, contains few digressions which do not 
bear directly upon the plot; but it has the same colloquial 
and conversational style, the same occasional rise into true 
imaginative poetry with the inevitable following drop into 
the commonplace, the same fondness for realism, and the 
same broad burlesque.^ Hampered as it is by the necessity 
of keeping the story well-knit, Byron's personalit}' has ample 
opportunity for expression. 

It is probable that Byron's description of Saint Peter and 
the angels owes much to his reading of Pulci.'' In at least 
one instance there is a palpable imitation. Saint Peter in 
the Vision, who was so terrified by the approach of Lucifer 
that, 

"He patter 'd with his keys at a great rate, 
And sweated through his apostolic skin, ""* 

suffered as did the same saint in the Morgante Maggiore 
who was weary with the duty of opening the celestial gate 
for slaughtered Christians : 

' Letters, v., 385. 

* The recurrence in the Vision of many familiar devices of Don Juan 
reminds us that the Vision marks Byron's resumption of the ottava 
rima, which he had left oflE on December 27, 1820, at the completion of 
Don Juan, Canto V., because of the request of the Countess Guiccioli 
that he discontinue the work. In the meantime he turned his attention 
to the drama, and Cain, The Two Fosarci, and Sardanapalus were pub- 
lished in December, 1821. The Vision then was his only work in the 
octave stanza between December 27, 1820, and June, 1822, when he 
began Canto VI. of Don Juan. 

3 Byron had finished his translation of the first canto of the Morgante 
in February, 1820. ■» The Vision of Judgment, 25. 



"the vision of judgment" 197 

"Credo che molto quel giomo s'afEana: 
E converra ch'egli abbi buono orecchio, 
Tanto gridavan quelle anime Osanna 
Ch'eran portate dagli angeli in cielo; 
Sicche la barba gli sudava e '1 pelo."^ 

In employing the realistic method in depicting the angels, 
Byron seems to have caught something of Pulci's grotesque 
spirit. 

One line of the Vision, 

"When this old, blind, mad, helpless, weak, poor worm," 

seems to imitate the opening of Shelley's powerful Sonnet; 
England in i8ig, already quoted, 

"An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king." 

Professor Courthope has suggested that Byron's Don 
Juan owes something to the work of Peter Pindar.* The 
evidence for the relationship seems, however, to be very 
scanty. Wolcot never employed the octave stanza, nor, 
indeed, did he ever show evidences of true poetic power. 
The two men were, of course, alike in that they were both 
liberals, both avowedly enemies of George III, and both out- 
spoken in their dislikes. But Byron seldom except in parts of 
the Vision used the method of broad caricature so charac- 
teristic of Pindar. In the Vision, too, occurs the only obvious 
reference on Byron's part to Pindar's satire. He describes 
the effect of Southey's dactyls on George III, in the lines: 

"The monarch, mute till then, exclaim'd, 'What! What! 
Pye come again? No more — No more of that. '"^ 

^ Morgante Maggiore, XXVI., 91. 
^ History of English Poetry, v., 250. 
3 The Vision of Judgment, 92. 



198 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

The couplet recalls Pindar's delightful imitations of that 
king's eccentric habit of repeating words and phrases. 
However, Byron's style in both Don Juan and the Vision 
is drawn more from Italian than from English models. 

The Vision of Judgment is, if we exclude Don Juan as 
being more than satire, the greatest verse-satire that Byron 
ever wrote. It is only natural then to compare the poem 
with other English satires which have high rank in our 
literature. A practically unanimous critical decision has 
established Dryderi^ Absalom and Achitophel as occupying 
the foremost position in English satire before the time of 
Byron. Unquestionably this work of Dryden's is admir- 
able; it is witty, pointed, and direct, embellished with 
masterly character sketches and almost faultless in style. 
It does, however, suffer somewhat from a lack of unity, due 
primarily to the fact that the narrative element in the poem 
is subordinate to the description. Byron's Vision, on the 
other hand, has a single plot, which is carefully carried 
out to a climax and a conclusion. Action joins with in- 
vective and description in forming the satire. Thus the 
two poems, approximately the same length if we consider 
only Part I of Absalom and Achitophel, give a decidedly 
different impression. Dryden's satire seems a panorama 
of figures, while Byron's has the coherence and clash of 
a drama. 

Absalom and Achitophel is witty but seldom humorous; 
while Byron joins caricature and burlesque to wit. The 
best lines in Dryden's poem, such as: 

"Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late; 
He had his jest, and the\^ had his estate. " 

excite admiration for the author's cleverness, but rarelj'" 
arouse a smile; the Vision, on the contrary, is full of buffoon- 
ery. Dryden's sense of the dignity of the satirist's office did 



"the vision of judgment" 199 

not •.permit him to lower his style, and he never became 
familiar with his readers; the veryjessence of Byron's satire 
is its colloquial character. 

Dryden kept his personality always in the background, 
while the egotistical Byron could not refrain from letting 
his individuality lend fire and passion to whatever he wrote. 
Thus the Vision, despite the fact that it is the most cool 
of Byron's satires, cannot be called calm and restrained. 
Self-control, the will to subdue and govern his impulses 
and prejudices, was beyond his reach. Fortunately in the 
Vision he did take time to exercise craftsmanship, but he 
never attained the polished artistry and firm reserve of 
his predecessor. Certainly in urbanity, in dignity, and in 
justice Dryden is the superior, just as he is undoubtedly 
less imaginative, less varied, and less spirited than Byron. 

The two satires are, then, radically different in their 
methods. One is a masterpiece of the Latin classical satire 
in English, formal and regular, and using the standard 
English couplet; the other is our finest example of the 
Italian style in satire — the mocking, grotesque, colloquial, 
and humorous manner. of Pulci and Casti. Both are effec- 
tive; but one is inclined to surmise that the purple patches 
in Absalom and Achitophel w411 outlast the more perfect 
whole of The Vision of Judgment. 

The probable results of the publication of a work of such 
a sensational character had been foreseen by both Murray 
and Longman. When the first number of The Liberal 
appeared containing not only The Vision of Judgment but 
also three epigrams of Byron's on the death of Castlereagh, 
it was received by a torrent of hostile criticism from the 
Tory press. The Literary Gazette for October 19, 1822, 
called Byron's work "heartless and beastly ribaldrj'', " and 
added on November 2, that Byron had contributed to the 
Liberal "impiety, vulgarity, inhumanity, and heartless- 
ness. " The Courier for October 26 termed him "an 



200 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

unsexed Circe, who gems the poisoned cup he offers us." 
On the Whig side, in contrast. Hunt's Examiner for Septem- 
ber 29 spoke of it as "a Satire upon the Laureate, which 
contains also a true and fearless character of a grossly 
adulated monarch. " 

Byron himself described it to Murray as "one of my best 
things."^ Later critical opinion has also tended to rank 
it very high. Goethe called the verses on George III "the 
sublime of hatred." Swinburne, himself a revolutionist 
but no partisan of Byron's, exhausts superlatives in com- 
menting on it: "This poem — stands alone, not in Byron's 
work only, but in the work of the world. Satire in earlier 
times had changed her rags for robes; Juvenal had clothed 
with fire, and Dry den with majesty, that wandering and 
bastard muse. Byron gave her wings to fly with, above the 
reach even of these. Others have had as much of passion 
and as much of humor; Dryden had perhaps as much of 
both combined. But here, and not elsewhere, a third 
quality is apparent — the sense of a high and clear imagina- 
tion. — Above all, the balance of thought and passion is 
admirable; human indignation and divine irony are alike 
understood and expressed ; the piire and fiery anger of men 
at the sight of wrong-doing, the tacit inscrutable derision of 
heaven." Nichol, in his life of Byron, says: — "Nowhere 
in so much space, save in some of the prose of Swift, is there 
in English so much scathing satire. " 

Two figures in Byron's poem have been made the basis 
of a shrewd comparison by Henley. He says: "Byron and 
Wordsworth are like the Lucifer and Michael of The Vision 
of Judgment. Byron's was the genius of revolt, as Words- 
worth's was the genius of dignified and useful submission; 
Byron preached the doctrine of private revolution, Words- 
worth the dogma of private apotheosis — Byron was the 
passionate and dauntless 'soldier of a forlorn hope,' Words- 

» Letters, vi., 77. 



THE VISION OF JUDGMENT 201 \ 

] 

i 

worth a kind of inspired clergyman. " Byron's sympathies I 

in the Vision, as in Cain, were tmdoubtedly with Lucifer, j 

the rebel and exile, and his poem will live as a satiric declara- i 

tion of the duty of active resistance to despotism and ! 

oppression. j 



CHAPTER X 
"the age of bronze" and "#the blues" 

Byron's Monody on the Death of Sheridan, written at 
Diodati on July 17, 1816, and recited in Drury Lane 
Theatre on September 7, was followed by a period of 
several years in which he ceased to employ the heroic coup- 
let in poetry of any sort. The reasons for this temporary 
abandonment of what had been, hitherto, a favorite measure, 
are not altogether clear, although his action may be as- 
cribed, in part, to his renunciation of things English and to 
the influence upon him of his study of the Italians. During 
his residence in Italy, Byron used many metrical forms: 
the Spenserian stanza, ottava rima, terza rima, blank 
verse, and other measures in some shorter lyrics and 
ephemeral verses. Not until The Age of Bronze, which he 
began in December, 1822, did he return to the heroic 
couplet of English Bards. 

On January 10, 1823, Byron, then living in Genoa, wrote 
a letter to Leigh Hunt, in which, among other things, he 
said: "I have sent to Mrs. S[helley], for the benefit of being 
copied, a poem of about seven hundred and fifty lines 
length — The Age of Bronze — or Carmeii Secular e et Annus 
haud Mirahilis, with this Epigraph — 'Impar Congressus 
Achilli'." By way of description, he added: "It is calcu- 
lated for the reading part of the million, being all on politics, 
etc., etc., etc., and a review of the day in general, — in my 

' Letters, vi., 1 60-1 61. 



"the age of bronze" and "the blues" 203 

early English Bards style, but a little more stilted, and 
somewhat too full of 'epithets of war' and classical and 
historical allusions."^ The work as revised and completed 
contains 18 sections and 778 lines. Originally destined for 
The Liberal, it was eventually published anonymously by 
John Hunt, on April i, 1823. 

The Age of Bronze is, then, entirely a political satire, 
intended chiefly as a counterblast to the recent stringent 
regulations of the reactionary Congress of Verona (1822). 
It comprises, however, other material: an introductory 
passage on the great departed leaders, Pitt, Fox, and 
Bonaparte; frequent digressions treating of the struggles 
for constitutional government then taking place in Europe ; 
and some lines attacking the landed proprietors in England 
for their luke-warm opposition to foreign war. It is, in 
nearly every sense, a timely poem, although the note of 
"Vanitas Vanitatum" sounded in the early sections gives 
the satire a universal application. 

. For a comprehension of Byron's motives in writing The 
Age of Bronze, it is necessary to understand something of 
the situation in Europe at the time. Following the numer- 
ous insurrections of 1820-22 in Spain, Portugal, Naples, 
Greece, and the South American States, the European 
powers, guided by the three members of the Holy Alliance, 
Russia, Prussia, and Austria, sent delegates to meet at 
Verona on October 20, 1822, for a consideration of recent 
developments in politics. The leading figure at the con- 
ference was Metternich, the Austrian statesman, although 
Francis of Austria, Alexander of Russia, and Frederick 
William of Prussia were among the monarchs present. 
Montmorenci, representing an ultra-royalist ministry under 
Villiele, was there to look after the interests of France; 
while England, deprived at the last moment of Castlereagh's 
services by his suicide, sent Wellington. The gathering 
finally resolved itself into a conclave for the purpose of 



204 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

discussing the right of France to interfere in the affairs of 
Spain, by restoring Ferdinand VII, a member of the House 
of Bourbon, to the throne of which he had been deprived 
by the Constitutionalists. WelHngton, after protesting 
against the agreement reached by the other envoys to permit 
the interference of France, left the Congress,' by Canning's 
instructions, in December. His withdrawal, however, did 
not affect the ultimate decision of the Congress to stamp 
out revolt whenever it assailed the precious principle of 
Legitimacy. War between France and Spain broke out in 
1823 ; Ferdinand VII was replaced upon his tottering throne ; 
and the despotic policy of Metternich triumphed, for a time, 
over democracy. Canning's only reply was to recognize 
the independence of the rebellious colonies of Spain, and to 
assert the belligerency of the Greeks, then fighting for their 
liberty against the Turks. 

It is to the year which saw the work of the Congress of 
Verona that Byron's secondary title. Annus hand Mirabilis, 
obviously refers. In a striking passage in the beginning 
of the poem, he pays a tribute to the mighty dead, contrast- 
ing, by implication, the leaders of the Congress with the 
departed heroes: Pitt and Fox, buried side by side in West- 
minster Abbey; and Napoleon, 

"Who born no king, made monarchs draw his car." 

The summary which Byron presents of Napoleon's career 
is full of admiration for the fallen emperor's genius, and of 
resentment at the indignities which, according to contem- 
porary gossip, he had been compelled to undergo on St. 
Helena. The man "whose game was empires and whose 
stakes were thrones" was forced, says the poet, to become 
the slave of "the paltry gaoler and the prying spy." The 
passage is both an appreciation and a judgment, wavering, 
as it does, between sympathy and condemnation for the 
conqueror who burst the chains of Europe only to renew, 



THE AGE OF BRONZE AND THE BLUES 205 

"The very fetters which his arm broke through. " 

The reference to these giants of the past leads Byron natur- 
ally to a glorification of such liberators as Kosciusko, Wash- 
ington, and Bolivar, and to a joyful heralding of revolutions 
in Chili, Spain, and Greece: 

"One common cause makes myriads of one breast, 
Slaves of the east, or helots of the west ; 
On Andes' and on Athos' peaks unfurl'd, 
The self-same standard streams o'er either world." 

Under the influence of this enthusiasm he prophecies a 
liberal outburst which will end in the regeneration of Europe. 
Contrasted with the optimism of this aspiring idealism 
is Byron's gloom over the deeds of the Congress of Verona. 
The measures advocated by this gathering, as we have seen, 
were reactionary and autocratic; and Byron's description 
of it, tinged with liberal sentiment, is vigorously satirical. 
In the conference headed by Metternich, "Power's foremost 
parasite, " he can see nothing but a body of tyrants, 

"With ponderous malice swaying to and fro. 
And crushing nations with a stupid blow." 

Many of the allusions in Byron's sketches of the members 
recall the language used by Moore in his Fables for the Holy 
Alliance. Moore's views of the situation in Europe agreed 
substantially with those of Byron. Byron's reference to 
the "coxcomb czar," 

"The autocrat of waltzes and of war," 

recalls Moore's mention of that sovereign in Fable I: 

"So, on he capered, fearless quite, 
Thinking himself extremely clever. 
And waltzed away with all his might, 
As if the Frost would last forever." 



206 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

Byron accuses Louis XVIII, who was not present at the 
Congress, of being a gourmand and a hedonist, 

"A mild Epicurean, form'd at best 
To be a kind host and as good a guest. " 

The same idea is conveyed in Moore's description of that 
king as, 

' ' Sighing out a faint adieu 
To truffles, salmis, toasted cheese." 

Especially painful to Byron was the report that Marie 
Louise (1791-1849), Napoleon's widow, who had been 
secretly married to her chamberlain, Adam de Neipperg, 
had attended the Congress, and had become reconciled to 
her first husband's captors. One section of the satire paints 
a picture of her leaning on the arm of the Duke of Welling- 
ton, "yet red from Waterloo," before her husband's ashes 
have had time to chill. 

The most bitter, and, at the same time, the most just 
satire in the poem is directed at the English landed gentry : 

' ' The last to bid the cry of warfare cease, 
The first to make a malady of peace." 

The rise in prices due to the long-continued war had 
fattened the purses of the farmers and land-holders in 
England, and led them to wish secretly for the continuance 
of the struggle. Byron attacks severely their grudging 
assent to proposals of peace, and, in a succession of rhymes 
on the word "rent," points out the selfishness of their 
position. The diatribe contains some of Byron's most 
passionate lines: 

"See these inglorious Cincinnati swarm. 
Farmers of war, dictators of the farm; 
Their ploughshare was the sword in hireling hands. 



"the age of bronze" and the blues 207 

Their fields manured by gore of other lands ; 
Safe in their bams, these Sabine tillers sent 
Their brethren out to battle — why ? for rent ! ' ' 

Although an occasional touch of mockery reminds us of 
Don Juan, The Age of Bronze, in method, shows a reversion 
to the invective manner of English Bards. It can hardly be 
said, however, that this later satire is any advance over the 
earlier poem. Its allusions are now unfamiHar to the aver- 
age reader, and the names once so pregnant with meaning 
have faded into dim memories. Although The Age of 
Bronze has sagacity and practicality, it lacks unity and 
concentration. Without the vehement sweep of English 
Bards, it is also too rhetorical and declamatory. Most 
readers, despite the flash of spirit which now and then lights 
its pages, have found the satire dull. / 

The Blues, so little deserving of attention in most re- 
spects, is unique among Byron's satires for two reasons : it is 
written in the form of a play, and it employs the anapestic 
couplet metre, used by Anstey and later by Moore. Byron's 
first reference to it occurs in a letter to Murray from 
Ravenna, August 7, 1821: "I send you a thing which I 
scratched off lately, a mere buffoonery, to quiz the Blues, 
in two literary eclogues. If pubHshed, it must be anony- 
mously — don't let my name out for the present, or I shall 
have all the old women in London about my ears, since it 
sneers a:t the solace of their ancient Spinsterstry. " ' On 
September 20, 1821, he calls it a "mere buffoonery, never 
meant for publication.'" Murray, following his usual 
custom with Hterature which was likely to get him into 
trouble, cautiously delayed publication, and the poem was 
turned over to John Hunt and printed in The Liberal, No. 
Ill (pages 1-24), for April 26. 1823. It was not attributed 

' Letters, v., 338. ' Letters, v., 369. 



208 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

to Byron by contemporary critics, most of them giving 
Leigh Hunt credit for the authorship. 

There is nothing in Byron's letters to explain the im- 
mediate motive which led the poet to scribble a work so un- 
worthy of his genius. In his journal kept during his society 
life in London there are several references to the "blues," 
and later he made some uncomplimentary allusions to them 
in Beppo and Don Juan. In a sense his eflEorts to ridicule 
them seem to parallel the attacks of Gifford on a coterie 
equally harmless and inoffensive. 

In form the satire is a closet drama in two acts, each 
containing approximately i6o lines. The characters rep- 
resented are intended, in many instances, for living persons. 
Thus, in the first act, which takes place before the door of a 
lecture room, Inkel, who is apparently Byron, converses 
with Tracy, who may be Moore. Within, Scamp, probably 
Hazlitt, is delivering a discourse to a crew of "blues, dandies, 
dowagers, and second-hand scribes." Among the subjects 
for discussion between the two men is Miss Lilac, a spinster, 
and heiress, and a Blue, who is doubtless a caricature of Miss 
Milbanke, the later Lady Bj^ron. References to "Rene- 
gado's Epic," "Botherby's plays," and "the Old Girl's 
Review'' indicate that Byron has returned to some favorite 
subjects for his satire. 

The second act is located at the home of Lad}^ Bluebottle, 
who resembles closely Lady Holland, the well-known Whig 
hostess and one of Byron's friends. Sir Richard Bluebottle, 
in a monologue, complains of the crowd of, 

"Scribblers, wits, lecturers, white, black, and blue." 

who invade his house and who are provided for at his 
expense. In the scene which ensues, Inkel acts as a sort of 
interlocutor, with the others as a chorus. Wordsworth, the 
"poet of peddlers," is satirized in the old fashion of English 
Bards as the writer who, 



THE AGE OF BRONZE AND THE BLUES " 209 

"Singing of peddlers and asses, 
Has found out the way to dispense with Parnassus." 

Southey is referred to as "Mouthy. " Of the other figures, 
Lady Bluemont is, perhaps. Lady Beaumont, and Miss 
Diddle, Lydia White, "the fashionable blue-stocking." 
When the party breaks up, Sir Richard is left exclaiming, 

" I wish all these people were damned with my marriage. " 

On May 6, 1823, Byron finished Canto XVI of Don Juan. 
The fourteen extant stanzas of Canto XVII are dated May 
8th. Shortly after he made preparations for his expedition 
to Greece, and, on July 23, 1823, sailed in the Hercules, 
with Gamba and Trelawney, for Cephalonia. From this 
time on, his work in poetry practically ceased. He wrote 
Moore from Missolonghi, March 4, 1824: "I have not been 
quiet in an Ionian Island but much occupied with business. 
. . . Neither have I continued Don Juan, or any other 
poem."^ He devoted himself to drilling Greek troops, 
holding conferences with leaders, and corresponding with 
the patriot parties. A fever, brought on by over-exposure, 
attacked him on April nth, on the 19th, he died. His 
remains were brought to England, and buried in the 
little church of Hucknall Torquard, only a few miles from 
Newstead Abbey. 

^Letters, vi., 336. 



CONCLUSION 

Mr. Augustine Birrell, in an illuminating essay on the 
writings of Pope, brings forward, with reference to satire, a 
standard of judgment which merits a wider application. 
"Dr. Johnson," says Mr. Birrell, "is more to my mind as a 
sheer satirist than Pope, for in satire character tells more 
than in any other form of verse. We want a personality 
behind — a strong, gloomy, brooding personality; soured and 
savage if you will — nay, as sour and savage as you like, but 
spiteful never. " Without subscribing unreservedly to Mr. 
Birrell's preference of Johnson over Pope, we may still point 
out that the most conspicuous feature of Byron's satire, as, 
indeed, of most of his other poetry, is the underlying per- 
sonality of the author, too powerful and aggressive to be 
obscured or hidden. There have been satirists who, in 
assuming to express public opinion, have succeeded in 
partly or entirely effacing themselves, and who have thus 
acted in the role of judicial censors, self-appointed to the 
task of voicing the sentiments of a party. In the poetry 
of the Anti- Jacobin, it is by no means easy to detect where 
the work of one Tory satirist leaves off and that of another 
begins. vSo in Dryden's work we are seldom confronted 
directly by the emotions or partialities of the writer himself; 
Absalom and Achitophel gives the impression of a cool 
impersonal commentary on certain episodes of history, 
prejudiced perhaps, but carried on with real or feigned 
calmness. Byron's satire is of a different sort; we can read 
scarcely a page without recognizing the potency of the 

210 



CONCLUSION 211 

personality that produced it. Just as in Childe Harold 
the hero usually represents Byron himself in some of the 
phases of his complex individuality ; just as the Lara and the 
Corsair of his verse romances and the Cain and Manfred 
of his dramas are reflections of the misanthropical, theatrical 
and skeptical poet; so, in the satires, no matter what method 
he uses, it is always Byron who criticises and assails. 

Most of the characteristics which make up this personality 
accountable for Byron's satiric spirit have been brought out 
and discussed in previous chapters. The most important 
of all, probably, is the haste and impetuosity with which he 
was accustomed to act. In this respect he may be again 
contrasted with Dryden, who proceeded to satirize an enemy 
after due preparation, without apparent agitation or excite- 
ment, much as a surgeon performs a necessary operation. 
Even Pope, sensitive and irritable though he was, did not 
usually strike when his temper was beyond his control. 
Byron, on the other hand, was, in most cases, feverish and 
impulsive; what he thought to be provocation was followed 
at once by a blow. He did not adopt a position of unmoved 
superiority, but, both too proud and too impatient to delay, 
sought instinctively to settle a dispute on the spot. Except 
in some instances notable because of their rarity, Byron 
seems to have had no understanding of the method of toying 
with a prospective victim; he planned to close with his 
opponent, to meet him in a grapple, and to overwhelm him 
by sheer energy and intrepidity. 

This want of restraint had, of course, some favorable 
results on his satire; the work was indisputably vigorous, 
effective because of the ungoverned passion which sustained 
it. At the same time this hasty action was detrimental to 
Byron's art, and accounts, in part, for the frequent lack of 
subtlety in his satire. We may be roused temporarily by 
the fury of the lines; but when, in less enthusiastic moods, 
we examine the details, we miss the technique and the 



212 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

transforming craftsmanship of the supreme artist. Only 
in The Vision of Judgment did he devote himself to devising 
means for gaining his end in the most dexterous fashion ; and 
the consequence is that poem is the finest of his satires. In 
the earlier satires we have Byron, the man, talking out 
spontaneously, angrily, unguardedly, without second thought 
or reconsideration, like Churchill, a mighty wielder of the 
bludgeon but a poor master with the rapier. 

Byron's satiric spirit was always combative rather than 
argumentative or controversial. He preferred to assail 
men rather than principles. When he disliked an institu- 
tion or a party, his invariable custom was to select some one 
as its representative and to proceed to call him to account. 
It is this desire to war with persons and not with theories 
that explains his attacks on Castlereagh, whom he never 
knew, but whom he singled out as the embodiment of 
England's repressive policy. By nature Byron was much 
more ready to quarrel with the Foreign Minister as an 
individual than he was to discuss the prudence and 
expediency of that statesman's measures. 

The characteristics so far mentioned could belong only to 
a daring and fearless man. Byron never hesitated to avow 
his ideas, nor did he ever retract his invective except in 
cases in which he had been convinced that he was unjust. 
He published the Lines to a Lady Weeping under his own 
name at a time when no one suspected his authorship. For 
years he satirized European sovereigns without showing the 
slightest sign of trepidation. He espoused unpopular 
causes, and often, of his own choice, ran close to danger, 
when mere silence would have assured him security. 

But despite the fact that Byron's hatreds were seldom 
disguised and that he was, on the whole, open and manly in 
his satire, there is another side to his nature which cannot be 
left unnoticed. He was, unfortunately, implicated in cer- 
tain incidents which leave him under the suspicion of a 



CONCLUSION 213 

kind of treachery towards his friends. His lampoon on 
Samuel Rogers, beginning, 

"Nose and chin wotild shame a knocker; 
Wrinkles that would puzzle Cocker ; ' ' 

and ending, 

"For his merits, would you know 'em? 
Once he wrote a pretty Poem," 

unpublished during his lifetime, was nevertheless a mali- 
cious squib directed at a man who had been one of his 
closest companions. There can be no doubt, too, that 
Byron's satiric ballad on Hobhouse, "My boy Hobbie, O," 
sent secretly to England, was a true stab in the back, 
administered to the man who had been his loyal friend. 
Byron, moreover, was not always accurate in his charges. 
Like most satirists, he exaggerated to gain his point, and 
made claims which the evidence did not justify. Nor is it 
in his favor that he chose to attack his wife in public lam- 
poons, and wrote scurrilous epigrams upon dead statesmen. 

This lack of delicacy aside, however, it must be recognized 
that Byron's satire was often exerted in condemning real 
evils, and that he performed a definite service to humanity. 
More than any other man of his time he insisted on liberty 
of speech and action in a period when reactionary poli- 
ticians were in the ascendant. He combated the perennial 
forms of hypocrisy and cant which appear constantly in 
England. Neither Dry den nor Pope had been the consis- 
tent champion of great causes; but Byron so often employed 
his satire for beneficial purposes that, despite the vitupera- 
tion with which it was greeted by conservatives, it became a 
powerful influence for good. 

It may be said, in general, of the substance of Byron's 
satires, that he devoted very little attention to the faults and 



214 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

foibles of mankind, taken as a whole. He was usually 
moved to satire b}' some contemporary person, event, or 
controversy, and his criticism was definite, levelled at some 
specific abuse or evil. In his youth he showed a disposition 
to take a lofty moral stand, and to preach against vice ; but he 
was ill-suited to didacticism, and soon forsook it altogether. 
After 1 8 12, his satire had a very intimate connection 
with the life around him in politics, society, and literature, 
and reflected the manners and moods of the age. It is to 
be noted, too, that Byron was, in theory at least, in opposi- 
tion to the spirit of his time. His belief in liberal doctrines 
led him to resist much that seemed safe and solid to those 
in his own class of life. He was not, in his later daj^s, in 
sympathy with the situation in Europe ; and he died too soon 
to see his progressive ideas bear fruit in the revolutions of 
1830 and the Reform Bill of 1832. 

In literature Byron satirized, throughout his career, the 
representatives of the older romantic school: Wordsworth, 
Coleridge, and Southey. He did this mainly on the ground 
that their principles of poetry were subversive of the rules 
handed down by his avowed masters, Pope and Gifford. 
In thus defending the name and doctrines of Pope, Byron 
was consistent during his literary lifetime, although he 
himself wandered from the path which he persistently 
asserted to be the only right one. In inveighing against 
Southey, he was, of course, animated largely by personal 
spite. For minor poetasters, scribblers who might have 
been made the puppets of a modern Dunciad, Byron had 
little but silent contempt. In literary satire, then, he 
presents the strange spectacle of a radical striving desper- 
ately to support a losing cause, and that cause a conserva- 
tive one. Progressive in nearly every other respect, Byron 
persisted in opposing any attempt to deviate from the 
standard established by Pope. 

Byron's satire on society was partly the result of pique. 



CONCLUSION 215 

He who had been for some time its idol, found himself 
expelled from English society, and, in retaliation, exposed 
its absurdities and follies. At the same time it is unques- 
tionable that he furthered a reform in ridiculing the cant 
and sham of English high life. It was in his last saner days 
that he wrote the cantos of Don Juan which treat of the all- 
pervasive hypocrisy of fashionable circles, and the satire, 
even to-day, rings true. It is noticeable that he seldom 
satirizes fads or fashions, and that he rarely, after i8i2, 
attacks private immorality. His zeal is devoted to unveil- 
ing pretence, and to describing this outwardly brilliant 
gathering as it really is. 

Since Byron was a radical and a rebel, his satire was 
devoted, so far as it concerned itself with political questions, 
to the glorification of liberty in all its forms, and to the 
vigorous denunciation of everybody and everything that 
tended to block or discourage progressive movements. In 
defence of freedom and in resistance to oppression, his satire 
found its fullest mission and its amplest justification. 
When continental Europe of the middle nineteenth century 
thought of Byron, it pictured him as a nobleman who had 
assailed tyrannical monarchy, who had aided Italy and 
Greece in their struggles for independence, and who had 
been willing to fight for the sake of the principles in which he 
believed. The words of Byron's political creed have a noble 
ring: "The king-times are fast finishing. There will be 
blood shed like water, and tears like mist; but the peoples 
will conquer in the end. I shall not live to see it, but I 
foresee it." 

The broader philosophical satire on humanity in which he 
was more and more inclined to indulge as he reached matur- 
ity is essentially shallow and cynical. As soon as Byron 
became indefinite, as soon as he undertook to preach, he 
grew unsatisfactory, for he had no lesson to teach beyond 
the pessimism of Ecclesiastes . 



2l6 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

All these objects for satire afforded Byron an opportunity 
for expressing some much-needed criticism. The most 
unworthy sections of his satire are those devoted to mere 
revenge: the unchivalric lines on Lady Byron and Mrs. 
Clermont; the violent abuse of Southey and Jeffrey; and the 
treacherous thrusts at Rogers and Hobhouse. In these 
passages' the satirist descends to the lower level of Chiu-chill 
and Gifford. 

It remains to say a word of Byron's methods, a word 
merely of recapitulation. Preferring directness always, he 
was inclined b}^ nature to go straight to his goal, to 
speak his mind out without pausing to devise subtle or 
devious plans of attack. Except in his Italian satires his 
procedure was simple enough: he hurled epithets, made 
scandalous and scurrilous charges, and thought out offensive 
comments, writing usually in the first person and meeting 
his enemies face to face in the good old way of his eighteenth 
century predecessors. It is, perhaps, unsafe, with Don Juan 
and The Vision of Judgment before us, to assert that he was 
incapable of finesse and cunning; but, for the most part, 
even in these poems, he was more fond of abuse than he was 
of innuendo and crafty insinuation. His impetuosity and 
irrepressible impulsiveness, to which we have had occasion 
so often to refer, did not allow him to dwell scrupulously on 
artistic effects. 

He had, however, two distinct satiric moods: the one, 
savage, stern, and merciless; the other, mocking, scornful, 
and humorous. The one resulted in invective, the other, 
in ridicule and burlesque. One came to him from Juvenal, 
Pope, and Gifford; the other he learned from Moore, Frere, 
and the Italians. Thanks to his versatility, he was success- 
ful in using both ; but his real genius was shown more in the 
contemptuous mirth'of The Vision of Judgment than in the 
fury of English Bards. 

Unlike Pope, Byron was no adept at framing pointed 



CONCLUSION 217 

phrases. The'beauty of Pope's satire lies in the single lines, 
in the details and the finish of an epithet. Byron's work, 
on the other hand, should be estimated with regard to the 
general effect. Few recall particular lines from the passage 
on Southey in The Vision of Judgment; yet every one re- 
members the complete caricature of the laureate. Pope 
manipulated a delicate and fine stencil; Byron painted on 
the canvas with broad sweeping strokes. 

Byron was the last of the great English satirists in verse, 
and he has had no imitators who have been able to approach 
his unique style and manner. It is a curious fact that his in- 
fluence after his death on nineteenth-centiu-y English satire 
has been almost negligible. The causes of this decline in 
satire since Byron's day are not altogether easy to explain. 
Perhaps it may be accounted for as accompanying the gen- 
eral lack of interest in poetry of any sort so common to-day. 
Possibly it may be due to the stringency of the laws against 
libel, which has resulted in the situation described by Sir 
George Trevelyan in his Ladies in Parliament: 

"But now the press has squeamish grown, and thinks 
invective rash: 
And telling hits no longer lurk 'neath asterisk and dash ; 
And poets deal in epithets as soft as skeins of silk, 
Nor dream of calling silly lords a curd of ass's milk." 

In the twentieth century great political problems are usually 
fought out in the newspapers or in prose pamphlets; the 
editorials of our daily journals take the place of satires like 
The A ge of Bronze. Doubtless, too, we have grown some- 
what refined in our sensibilities and fastidious in our speech, 
so that we shrink from the cut-and-slash method in poetry. 
At any rate our English satire since 1830 has inclined toward 
raillery and humor, wholly unlike the ardent vindictiveness 
of the men imder the Georges. The old regime died away 



2l8 LORD BYRON AS A SATIRIST IN VERSE 

with Byron; and in its stead we have had the polished 
cleverness of Praed, the gentle cynicism of Thackeray, the 
mild sentimentality of Looker and Dobson. Not until 
very recently have flashes of the invective spirit appeared in 
the work of William Watson and Rudyard Kipling. The 
great issues of the twentieth century have stimulated no 
powerful English satirist in verse. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The standard edition of Byron's Poetical Works is that 
by Ernest Hartley Coleridge in seven volumes (London, 
1904), which contains an exhaustive bibUography of the 
successive editions and translations of diflEerent poems. 
The most complete collection of the Letters and Journals is 
that by Rowland E. Prothero in six volumes (London, 
1902) . Any study of Byron must be largely based on these 
comprehensive and scholarly works. A fairly detailed Hst 
of critical articles on Byron was compiled by Roden Noel 
in his Life of Lord Byron; this, however, needs to be sup- 
plemented and revised in the light of recent investigation. 

The following list includes only the more important 
sources of information for this treatise. 

AcKERMANN, R. Lord Byron, Heidelberg, 1901. 

Anti-JacoUn, Poetry of the, edited by Charles Edmonds, 

London, 1890. 

Armstrong, J. L. Life of Lord Byron, London, 

1858. 

Arnold, Matthew. Byron (In his Essays in Criti- 

cism, Second Series, Lon- 
don, 1903)- 

Austin, Alfred. A Vindication of Lord Byron, 

London, 1869. 
Byron and Wordsworth (In his 
Bridling of Pegasus, Lon- 
don, 1910.) 
219 



220 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Bell, John. 
Beyle, Henri. 
Bleibtreu, K. 

Blessington, Lady. 

Brandes, G. 

Brydges, Sir Samuel E. 



buratti, p. 
Castelar, E. 

Casti, G. B. 



Chasles, V. E. p. 



-«» Chesterton, G. K. 



Churchill, C. 



Fugitive Poetry, London, 1790. 

18 vols, in 9. 
Lord Byron en Italie (In his 

Racine, Paris, 1854). 
Byron der Uehermensch, Sein 

Leben und sein Dichten, 

Jena, 1897. 
Conversations with Lord Byron, 

London, 1834. 
Main Currents in igth Century 

Literature, London, 1905. 
Letters on the Character and 

Poetical Genius of Lord 

Byron, London, 1824. 
An Impartial Portrait of Lord 

Byron, as a^ Poet and a 

Man, Paris, 1825. 
Poesie, Venezia, 1864. 2 vols. 
Life of Lord Byron, and Other 

Sketches, London, 1875. 
Gli Animali Parlanti, Londra, 

1803. 2 Tome. 
Novelle, Parigi, 1804. 3 volumi. 
// Poema Tartaro, Milano, 

1871. 

Vie et influence de Byron sur son 
If 
epoque (In his Etudes sur 

r Angleterre au XIX siecle, 

1850.) 

The Optimism of Byron (In 
his Twelve Types, London, 

1903) 
Poetical Works, Boston, 1854. 
(Ed. by Tooke.) 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



221 



Clinton, G. 
Collins, J, C. 
courthope, w. j. 

Dallas, R. C. 
Edgcumbe, R. 

ElCHLER, A. 



Elze, Karl. 

ESTEVE. 

Frere, J. H. 

FUHRMAN. 

Galt, John. 
Gamba, p. 

GiFFORD, W. 
GiLFILLAN, G. 

GuicciOLi, Countess. 



Memoirs of the Life and Writings 

of Lord Byron, hondon, 1825. 
Studies in Poetry and Criticism, 

London, 1905. 
The Liberal Movement in English 

Literature, London, 1885. 
A History of English Poetry, 

London, 1895-1910. 6 vols. 
Recollections of the Life of Lord 

Byron, 1808-18 14, London, 

1824. 
Byron, the Last Phase, New 

Fork, 1909. 
John Hookham Frere: Sein 

Leben und seine Werke; 

Sein Einfliiss auf Lord 

Byron, Wien und Leipsig, 

1905- 
Lord Byron; A Biography, 

London, 1872. 
Byron et le Romantisme franqais, 

Paris, 1907. 
Works, London, 1872. 2 vols. 
Die Belesenheit desjungen Byron. 
The Life of Lord Byron, Lon- 
don, 1830. 
A Narrative of Lord Byron's 

Last Journey to Greece, Lon. 

don, 1825. 
The Baviad and the Mceviad, 

London, 1797. 
A Second Gallery of Literary 

Portraits, London, 1850. 
Lord Byron juge par les temoins 

de sa vie, Paris, 1868. 



222 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



\ 



Hancock, A. E. 

Hannay, J. 
Hazlitt, W. 
Hunt, L. 

Jack, A. A. 
Jeaffreson, J. C. 
Kennedy, James. 



koeppel, e. 
Medwin, T. 

Moore, Thomas. 



More, P. E. 

NiCHOL, J. 

Parry, W. 
Pope, A. 



The French Revolution and the 

English Poets, New York, 

1899. 
Satire ajid Satirists, London, 

1854. 
The Spirit of the Age, London, 

1825. 
Lord Byron, and Some of his 

Contemporaries, London, 

1828. 2 vols. 
Poetry a?id Prose, London, 

1912. 
The Real Lord Byron, Leipsig, 

1883. 3 vols. 
Conversations on Religion, with 

Lord Byron and Others, 

London, 1830. 
Lord Byron, Berlin, 1903. 
Journal of the Conversations of 

Lord Byron, London, 1824. 
Letters and Journals of Lord 

Byron, with Notices of his 

Life, London, 1830. 
Memoirs, Journal, and Corre- 
spondence, London, 1856. 

8 vols. 
The Wholesome Revival of Byron. 

(In the Atlantic. Vol. 82, 

December, 1898.) 
Byron, London, 1908. (Eng. 

Men of Letters Series.) 
The Last Days of Lord Byron, 

London, 1825. 
Poetical Works, London, 1895. 

10 vols. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



223 



Previte-Orton, C. W. 

PULCI, L. 

Pyre, J. F. A. 

ROEVER. 

Stephen, L. 
Swinburne, A. C. 

Trelawney, E. J. 

Trent, W. P. 
Tucker, S. M. 
Weddigen, O. 



Political Satire in English Poetry, 

Cambridge, 1910. 
Morganie Maggiore, Venezia, 

1784. 
Byron in our Day. (In the 

Atlantic, Vol. 99, April, 

1907.) 
Lord Byrons Gedanken ueher 

Alexander Pope's Dicht- 

kunst, Hanover, 1886. 
Byron (In Diet, of Nat Biog., 

Vol. viii., pp. 132-155)'. 
Essays and Studies, London, 

1875- 
Miscellanies, London, 1886. 
Recollections of the Last Days of 

Shelley and Byron, Lon- 
don, 1858. 
Records of Shelley, Byron, and 

the Author-, London, 1878. 
The Byron Revival. (In the 

Forum, Vol. 26, October, 

1898.) 
Verse Satire in England before 

the Renaissance, New York, 

1906. 
Lord Byrons Einfluss auf die 

europaischen Litteraturen der 

Neuzeit, Hannover, 1884. 



INDEX 

Ackermann, Richard, i86 (note) 
Age of Bronze, The, 4, 6, 8, 53, 202-207. 
Anstey, Christopher, 30, 32, 40. 
Anti-Jacobin, 30-33, 37, 59, 61, 64, 85 

Barrett, E. S., 36, 40 

Becher, Rev. J. T., 39, 45, 48 

Beppo, 6, 7, 8, 93, 113-127, 129-131. 144. 145, 161, 163, 182 

Berni, Francesco, 8, 118 (note), 121 (note), 127, 144, 155-157, 161 

Birrell, Augustine, Mr., 103, 209 

Blackwood's Magazine, 51 

Blessington, Countess of, 115, 164. 

Blues, The, 207-209 

Bowles, Rev. Samuel, 62-63 

Brougham, Lord, 48, 167 

Burns, Robert, 29 

Butler, Samuel, 11, 16, 122, 182 

Butler, Dr., 40-41 

Buratti, 157-159 

Byron, Lady, 107-110, 175-176 

Byron, Lord: place among English satirists, 7; divisions of his satire, 
8-9; early satiric verse, 39-47; position in 1798; travels in Spain 
and Greece, 77; life in London, 94; his political beliefs, 95, 143, 
168-172, 204; life in Italy, 115-116; death and burial, 208; influence, 
185, 186 (note) 

Canning, George, 31, 32, 34, 35, 40, 203, 204 

Carlisle, Lord, 43 (note), 66-67 

Casti, Giambattista, 8, 117, 118-119, 127-144, 161, 162, 181 

Castlereagh, Lord, 102, 1 70-1 71 

Chesterton, G. K., 14 

Childe Harold, 6, 7, 77, 78, iio-iii, 122, 136 (note) 

Churchill, Charles, 3, 21-22, 25; Apology Addressed to the Critical 

Reviewers, 56-58; Prophecy of Famine, 66, 88-89 
Clarke, Hewson, 67 

225 



226 INDEX 

Clermont, Mrs., 108-109, 215 

Cleveland, John, 1 1 , 88 

Coleridge, S. T., 60-62, 63, 84, 173 

Collins, J. C, 127 (note), 129 (note) 

Corsair, The, 97 

Courthope, W. J., 6, 29 

Cowper, 22, 66 

Crabbe, 22-23 

Critical Review, 56-57 

Curse of Minerva, The, 7, 77, 86-92 

Dallas, R. C, 49, 68, 77, 78 

Devil's Drive, The,g^, 101-102 

Don Juan, 6, 8, 93, 114, 116, 127, 128, 133-144, 147-154, 158, 159, 161, 

162, 163-187, 198, 208, 216 
Dryden, 3, 7, 11-13, 14, 15, 17, 37, 52; comparison of Absalom and 

Achitophel and The Vision of Judgment, 198-199; 210, 211, 212 

Edinburgh Review, 48-58 

English Bards, and Scotch Reviewers, 7-8, 33, 36, 37, 38, 47, 48-76, 79, 
92,95, 112, 162, 167, 169, 174, 187,201,215 

Forteguerri, 160 

Frere, J. H., 31, 118 (note); The Monks, and the Giants, 1 17-127 

Fugitive Pieces, 39, 41, 42 

George III, 34, 94, 190, 191, 192, 193, 195, 196, 200 

George IV, 94, 96-98, 100, 105, 171 

Giaour, The, 7, 94 

Gifford, 8, ID, 23-25, 29, 31, 40, 42, 47, 50, 53, 54, 65; comparison of 

Gififord and Byron, 71-73; 74, 85,93, II3. 170. 213 
Goethe, 195 

Goldsmith, 20, 30 (note) 
Guiccioli, Countess, 116, 174, 177 (note) 

Hamilton, Lady Anne, 35-36, 40; Epics of the Ton, 59-60,61,64 

Henley, W.E., 200 

Hints from Horace, 8, 77-85, 92 

Hobhouse, J. C, 77, 78, 179, 216 

Hodgson, F., 57, 59, 73, 78 

Holland, Lord, 58, 68, 106 (note) 

Hunt, Leigh, 68, 69, 95, 98, 115, 146, 202 

Ireland, W.H., 36 



INDEX 227 

Jeaffreson, 75, 98 
Jeffrey, 45, 50, 55, 56, 84, 216 
Johnson, Samuel, 21 
Juvenal, 21, 51 

Lamb, Lady Caroline, 107 

Lewis, M. G., 63, 64 

Liberal, The, 98, 148, 188, 191, 199, 201, 206 

Lines to a Lady Weeping, 97, 98 

Mant, Richard, 36-37, 40; his Simpliciad, 59, 60, 61, 62 

Mathias, T. J., 19 (note), 25-26, 29, 33, 37, 40; his Pursuits oj Litera- 
ture, 26 (note); 118 

Moore, Thomas, i, 30, 32, 36, 38; attacked in English Bards, 63-64; 
74; his quarrel and reconciliation with Byron, 95-97; 98, 99i I05. m 

Murray, John, 78, 97, 102, 109, iii, 115, 118, 147, 154 (note), 164, 165, 
166 (note), 175, 179, 191, 200 

Ottava rima, 9, 114, 120-121 (note); Byron's management of, 122, 161, 
181,202 

Parody, 5, 32, 189 and note 

Peacock, T. L., 172 (note) 

Pigot, Elizabeth, 44, 48 

Pope, 5, 7, 10; work as a satirist, 13-16; 18, 22, 33, 36, 37, 40, 41, 53. 
54. 55. 59. 62, 63; comparison of Byron and Pope, 69-72; 74; Essay 
on Criticism, 81-82; Epistle to Lord Bathurst, 89; 93, 113, 173. 191. 214 

Pulci, Luigi, 8, 117, 120, 144; life, and influence on Byron, I45-I55; 156, 
161, 196-197, 199 

Rejected Addresses, 28 (note), 106-107 and note 
RolUad, 27-28, 32, 40 

Satire, 2-5 

Scott, Walter, Sir, 5, 59-60 and note, 98 

Shelley, 38, 171 (note), 178, 188 

Sketch, ^,93, 108-109 

Southey, 60-62, 84, 173; Byron's quarrel with him, 188, ff.; his Vision 

of Judgment, 190-191 
Swift, 16-17,27, 122, 182 
Swinburne, 200 

Travesty, 5, 189 and note 
Trelawney, 17 (note), 115, 182 



228 



INDEX 



Vision of Judgment, The, 7, 8, 114, 116, 162, 188-201 

Waltz, The, 6, 7, 8, 65, 93, 103-106 

Windsor Poetics, 93, 99 

Wordsworth, 34, 36, 60-62, 71, 84, 174, 208 

Young, 16,20,28 



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